


The Good, the Bad, and the Mask

by Trashratsaws



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Bandits & Outlaws, Claustrophobia, Enemies to Lovers, Established Relationship, Found Family, Happy Ending, Horses, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Multiple Pairings, Mutual Pining, Realistic Minecraft, Slow Burn, Trauma, Wild West AU, dnf main ship, minecraft manhunt au, now i've seen it all, only for karl/sap and velvet/ant tho, the day has come where i tag horses in a wild west au fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:01:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28387437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trashratsaws/pseuds/Trashratsaws
Summary: Outlaw Dream finds himself on the run from a small team of hunters, sent after him for a bounty on account of a crime he did not commit. The three hunters have recruited a fourth hand - a witch - to track him down after months of failed scavenges. With his help, Dream's storybook criminal life is about to come to an end.But what is the crime he's convicted of?
Relationships: Antfrost & VelvetIsCake (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Karl Jacobs/Sapnap
Comments: 57
Kudos: 116





	1. Gunmen in The Hutchinson

**Author's Note:**

  * For [clemenzine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clemenzine/gifts).



> Hi I wrote this with @JudgmentalAngel, thank you for the idea and for outlining and being a fanfuckingtastic beta. I owe you my life, sib. Your brain is huge. 
> 
> Enjoy this product of watching the latest manhunt and receiving brainrot.

Stones clacked together on a patch of hard-packed sand, turned upwards to show the lines etched carefully into them. _No_ , they said. 

The sun was at its highest peak, and the desert roses retreated into their plants to hide from it. It glared down until the desertscape ahead began to liquify. From somewhere, a vulture cawed, just to punctuate the scene Antfrost found himself in. He threw the stones again. _No_ , they said. 

“I already told you it’s not working!” he turned and said. He had to look up to speak, for the person he was addressing was mounted on a horse. Bad looked at him forgivingly. 

“Well then try it again!” said George, from atop another horse, somewhere to Ant’s left. Ant’s head whipped around to face him.

“ _How many times_ \- that’s not how it _works_ , God, you’re insufferable-!” 

“That’s enough!” said Bad, before anybody started saying anything they would regret. “Ant, would you try just one more time, please?”

Ant sighed. He wiped sweat from his brow through his fur and dug his claws into the sand, repressing the urge to hiss when he felt it get in between his toes and paw pads. The stones in his hand buzzed with irritation. They were not going to give him a straight answer, but Bad was probably hoping that asking them nicely would work out, so Antfost tried something else. Sapnap watched with fascination, leaning so far off his saddle Ant was afraid he might fall. 

_Alright,_ he said to the stones, not out loud, for fear of sounding ridiculous. _Is Dream hiding, or is he on the run? Yes for hiding_. He tossed the stones in the air, praying to Athena that it would work. They twisted in the air, mulling over his question, then fell to the ground decisively. 

_Yes_.

With a sigh Ant turned back to Bad with a glimmer of satisfaction hiding among the sweat and frustration. “He’s hiding somewhere,” he said, slipping the stones into his pocket. They huffed from fatigue and overuse. Antfrost internally rolled his eyes. Runes were always so difficult. 

Bad gave him a comforting smile. “Thank you.” 

The desert landscape was insufferable at midday. The sun taunted the four of them, unwavering and stoic as it charioted across the sky at its highest point, forcing critters to scurry into the underground until it disappeared. Ant wished he were one of them. Natural insulation tended to do nothing when matched against the insufferably hot weather of the west. He should never have come here, he thought, wishing he was back at Velvet’s place, shoving his paws into the icebox. This whole bounty hunting business really wasn’t for him, he’d known it from the start. This whole _country_ wasn’t for him. 

“Are we going the right way, Ant?” said Sapnap from beside him. His horse whinnied underneath him. “ _Shh, Spirit._ ” 

Ant pulled Sapnap’s compass out of his pocket and threw it at him. His temper was wearing thin, only partially because of the sun. Sapnap caught it - just barely - and gave it a good, long stare. He was surely used to regular compasses, not enchanted ones, but Antfrost couldn’t be bothered to explain it to him - he could hardly be bothered to open his mouth. The searing heat was making its way down to his skin. 

“So, Ant,” said Bad, curiously. _Please, not you too._ “If we have the compasses, why do we need anything else?” Ant wanted to bash his own head onto the pommel. 

“The compass,” he said, in his calmest possible voice, “only works in approximations.” 

“Smaller words please,” slurred Sapnap. It seemed the heat was getting to everyone. Antfost sighed, deeply. _Very_ deeply. 

“There is a bunch of _stuff_ . That can _mess_ with the _compass thingy_ ,” he said, trying to sound as stupid as possible. It was the only way bounty hunters seemed to understand him. “We need to keep stopping to check if the compass thingy is _correct_.” He stopped. That was probably sufficient to them.

The horses’ heads were beginning to hang low. Although the tensions were high, the horses were tired, and they were already dangerously low on food and water, they would have to make it at least until the afternoon before they stopped to rest, or they would get fried for sure. So they kept pace - horrible, slow, back-burning pace. Ant noticed the red splotches of uneven sunburns forming on the hunters’ faces. The air smelled like death. 

“Oh,” said Sapnap, unsatisfied. “Ok.” Antfrost threw him a sympathetic look, despite himself.

“Besides,” he continued, trying his true and honest best, “the compass doesn’t tell us what he’s doing, only what direction he’s in. There’s constant interference, we have to know if he’s moving away from us or not, if he’s throwing the compass on purpose somehow, he might even be _undergrou-_ does anyone see that?” 

The three turned their heads to Ant, who was staring off into the distance after cutting himself off shortly. There, sat perfectly on the horizon line, was a dashed line of green. He must be hallucinating. They couldn’t have been as far out into the desert as to come close to the forest - The Hutchinson. 

“ _Trees!_ ” shouted Sapnap. Apparently they could have.

The four of them nearly injured themselves with the speed at which they prompted their horses onward, moving instantaneously into a gallop, then a sprint. All of them soaked in sweat, feeling boiled alive in the heat, _this_ close to being vulture food, and suddenly the promise of a single green leaf. A _single_ patch of grass. Even western hunters, Antfrost conceded as they sprinted, must get sick of the heat. It made perfect sense to him, too. If he wasn’t careful when they got there, he might just lower himself to his knees and shove fistfulls of greenery into his mouth just to feel the cool humidity on his body somewhere.

Then he noticed something. 

“ _Whoa whoa whoa!_ ” he said, stopping all the horses in their tracks. George burned holes in the back of his skull with how hard he was glaring. 

“Christ, _what_??” 

“ _Look_.”

George looked. Rising above the treeline was the bare outline of a structure. The unmistakable shape of the oh so fabled Dark Mansion of The Hutchinson. Antfrost felt himself tense involuntarily. Without a doubt Dream was inside - he didn’t have to look at his compass to know. This mess of a bounty hunting group was now standing between one death trap and another. As the spirits of the group collectively dropped below freezing, Antfrost’s head lowered slowly to rest on the horn of his saddle. He really shouldn’t have come to the west.

* * *

The inside of a forest mansion was damp with decay. Moss was clinging to every corner, so that Dream had to watch where he stepped to avoid getting mud on his shoes, not that it mattered all that much now. Around every unlit corner was potential death - an opportunity, if he would. He adjusted his mask on his face. The clamp needed tightening again. 

The light coming through the floor-to-ceiling windows began to disappear, and the sound of water dripping onto the hardwood from some leak upstairs became very loud. Dream shuddered away the thought of what might be behind him, the thought of fragile structural integrity, and pushed forward. 

His ears twitched at the slightest soundHe turned the corner and swung. The shadow of a vindicator leaped at him, making it about as far as a metre before him before getting nailed to the wall by an axe blade with a violent _thunk_ . Blood soaked the floorboards under him, but there was nothing valuable on his body. _Dammit_. 

The unlit torch on the wall fired at the touch of a match, and yellow light flooded the room. Outside, the sun was making its descent. Dream rolled his head to crack his neck tiredly and pulled his axe from the wall - and from the vindicator. Eventually he would find it. He was so close. 

“Come on,” he muttered, impatient. “ _Come out_.” 

The floorboards creaked under him. The glass on the windows seemed to melt with the orange sky outside. He shivered the cold off his shoulders. Though he could probably see it if he went up close to a window and squinted, the desert heat felt painfully distant. He clamped his hand shut and shoved it into his pocket, gripping the vial of ghast tears that rested idly there. _This will work_ , he thought. _This is going to work_. 

At the end of the hallway, a figure appeared. Dream locked his hands onto his axe’s handle. His fingertips burned from the cold, but excitement buzzed through his veins. He readied his stance for a tricky fight and licked his lips. _Finally_. 

“Come on,” he said to it again, louder. The evoker took a step and lifted his hand, ready to summon his capricious minions. Dream didn’t wait another second to step forward and lift his axe into the air.

The swing did not make it far, colliding with nothing but air as Dream was assailed by the deafening sound of the window beside him shattering to bits, something - or _someone_ \- flying in through along with the raining shards of glass. Dream recognized them immediately - _the bounty hunters._

_No_. 

“There he is!” shouted the cat to the others, prompting them all to lift their weapons in his direction. 

“Watch out!” shouted another, clad in black, dodging the biting sting of a vex flying straight for him. “An evoker!” Their aim was quickly redirected. 

**_No_ ** **.**

Dream leapt up, taking advantage of their distress to weave through them towards the man at the end of the hallway, dodging every swing that came his way. He broke into a sprint. _Mine,_ he thought. He was so close. He refused to lose now. 

He flew up, dragging his axe through an arc in the air to put as much weight behind it as possible and bringing it down with all the power he had in his arm, feeling as though he were moving through the air in slow motion. The evoker’s head split wide open, and from his pocket dropped exactly what Dream needed. As he tumbled to the floor, losing his footing, he scrambled around the collapsing body to grab it and clasp it in his weary hands. _Now to escape the-_

His thought was cut short by an arrow piercing the air and digging sharply into the skin of his arm. 

“ _Fuck!”_ he cried, despite himself. He yanked the arrow out, growling through his teeth. A dark patch grew alarmingly quickly on his shirt. 

“I got him!” shouted a hunter. The one in blue. _Little bastard_ . The hunter nocked another arrow and fired, aiming directly for Dream’s legs. The flint of the arrowhead made a rough _clink_ as it collided with his axehead, just before he broke into a sprint down the dead-end hallway towards them. 

He locked his eyes on the blue one, determined to knock the bow from his hands. He leapt again, feeling particularly light on his feet, to come face to face with the hunter dropping his bow and putting his hands up to catch Dream and tumble to the ground, kicking up with his legs. _Oh shit_. 

Dream flew through the air, tossed upside down, and landed flat on his back. The air vanished from his lungs and he scrambled up to his feet with a gasp. He reached desperately into his pocket and held onto the object for dear life - quite literally. The hunter in red rushed towards him with his cast-iron sword swung high. Dream saw nothing but the glint of the moonlight on the blade before it collided with his body. 

He felt the blood rise in his throat, felt himself spit it onto the floor, felt himself split in half, but no pain. He willed it to work - dug his fingernails into the carved wood, into the palm of his hand. The taste of iron choked him - rose in his mouth like bile. He lifted the totem into the air, calling on whatever force would will it with him. With no sensation in his legs, he rose to his feet and watched - eyes and mouth wide - as his body stitched itself back together. 

His muscles reached for each other again, his skin stretched back onto itself. He felt himself fit together like a puzzle, going from many pieces to whole again. _Dammit._

The hunter that had killed him stared, unbelieving and unmoving for a good, tense moment. 

“You’re kidding,” he muttered. “You’re _kidding!_ ”

Dream felt his frustration ease. At least he wasn’t dead. 

“This has been fun,” he said, unable to help himself. “But I’ve gotta go.” 

Dodging the rage-filled swing of the hunter’s blade, he regained his footing and sprinted away down the hall. 

“ **_You fucking RAT!_ ** ” shouted the hunter after him. At least he was alive, Dream repeated in his head. At least he wasn’t dead. But _dammit_ he’d been so close. It had been in his _hands_ . He’d _had_ it. He heard the stampede of feet behind him. He didn’t have time to get another one. _Fuck_ . Fine. _Fine_.

He reached into his memory to weave his way through the infinite rooms and back to the exit. He wasn’t about to jump from the second floor window, but he needed to leave, _now_. His plan might need a bit of a push. 

Dream reached into his satchel, careful not to drop anything while he ran. Not a chance of slowing down, ghast tears and an ender eye in his hands, he turned a corner sharply and uncapped the vial with his teeth. He jumped a railing and skidded down a flight of stairs, turned another corner, then another and another, went from room to room trying to lose the irritating pack of hunters on his tail, but only just barely. 

He took a case of strong glass from his satchel - glad to at least be free of some weight and space - and tossed the eye and tears into it, giving it a good shake. One last corner, and he turned and tossed the case into the air. 

The End Crystal would fall, and if he’d done everything right, it would cause an explosion that would kill all four of them. 

* * *

Sapnap wanted to set the whole mansion on fire. How. _How the hell did he survive_ ?! And now the fucker was running around the building like a fucking snake, like a sneaky little _rat_ . Sapnap was going to tear his arms off. His sword was ready, still covered in blood - _Dream’s_ blood - from when he _should have fucking died_. 

There was no force on earth that would stop Sapnap from tackling Dream to the ground and running his sword into his throat and _keeping it there_ \- except for maybe Antfrost. 

“ _Back! Go back!!_ ” Sapnap heard him shout, turning violently around to push the rest of them away.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a glowing crystalline object falling to the floor just before he heard the sound of shattering glass. Ant wrapped himself around them all, attempting vainly to cover them from the explosion that followed. The floors shook and a flash of light blinded Sapnap for a moment. He saw - just barely - the walls give out, splintering to smithereens, the floor blast open, revealing the ground floor and the shaking foundations beneath them. 

Ant dragged them up from the floor and pushed. Three of them ran frantically toward a broken window as Ant shouted “ _go! Just go!”_ but Sapnap stood rooted to his spot. Across the gap in the floor, far in the distance now, Dream was getting farther and farther away from them. 

“ **_Sapnap!_ ** ” Ant shouted, one leg already out the window, clinging desperately to George’s arm on the other side. “ _Move!!”_

Sapnap didn’t hear a word. He took a running start and leapt over the gap in the floor, landing to the thunderous sound of the old wooden walls of the mansion creaking and groaning at the pressure. It was going to collapse, but Sapnap didn’t hear that either. His boots gripped the mildew-stained floorboards with every step he took towards Dream. There was no chance he let him get away again. Not again. 

At the turn of a corner Sapnap caught sight of the _snake_ , crawling away down another flight of stairs while the mansion dropped walls on them both. He sprinted towards him, gripping his sword with both ready hands. Just down one more hallway was sure to be the exit. _He wouldn't let him get there_. 

Sapnap threw himself against the wall, causing planks of rotting wood and plaster to come raining down on both Dream and the hallway in front of him. _I’ve got you now._

With one last creak, the mansion finally gave out and collapsed. Distantly, Sapnap heard the shouts of the rest of the hunters calling for him as he looked up and realized what was happening. He reached desperately for Dream, catching his shirt and pulling him to a stop before the roof of the ceiling came solidly down on them both.


	2. The Sand and the Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sapnap and Dream struggle in the wreckage of the mansion after it collapses, and Dream makes his escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ayo that was quick. 
> 
> Really liked writing this chapter, it was super fun to imagine the landscapes and things. Enjoy!

The dust settling on Sapnap’s eyelids was enough to jolt him awake, feeling pain and soreness claw at his muscles and bruises forming on his skin. It only took a moment for the distorted colors and vague outlines above him to take the shape of a person. A very particular person. Face just inches above Sapnap’s, his arms up to either side of him, was Dream. 

“ _Don’t move_ ,” hissed Dream as Sapnap stirred. Sapnap took the moment to realize that on his back was what no doubt used to be a support beam, above which shuddered a mass of stone and plaster. It was surely heavy enough to crush them. They were shrouded in complete darkness, the evening light from outside to fight its way through the rubble. _Why was Dream even there?_? 

“Wh-what are you doing?” Sapnap managed, just barely. 

“Saving your goddamn life, _shut up_.” 

Dream grunted as the beam on his back jerked at the movement. Sapnap felt like he’d been punched in the gut. _Whose life_? 

“What?” 

Dream shot him a glare that would have killed if he didn’t also look so near-broken, unable to speak. His back trembled. Sapnap’s arms were frozen stiff at his sides. Dream looked about to snap in two. He was strong - stronger than most, the roof probably weighed as much as he did, many times over - but his body wasn’t built to lift it. Sapnap pondered very hard for a moment. He’d brought the mansion down on purpose. He could kick Dream’s legs out and kill them both, but what was the point of that? What good was a dead man to collect a bounty? No, if Dream died, Sapnap certainly wasn’t going with him. 

And then again. Dream had been far closer to the exit than Sapnap, probably close enough to reach it before he was crushed by the rubble. He could have - _should have_ left Sapnap behind. _What was Dream doing here_?

Using every ounce of willpower in his body, Sapnap reached up to the beam on Dream’s back and pushed. The rubble above threatened to come down with a creak, but stilled as Dream’s legs buckled and he dropped down onto one knee. Under different circumstances Sapnap might have found it funny. But now, he watched with rising stress as Dream’s consciousness began to slip away and more of the beam’s pressure shifted to Sapnap’s arm. 

With one last proud huff, Dream collapsed entirely onto Sapnap, causing the rubble above to shake once more, dropping a few stones and dust onto his face. He looked around frantically, searching for an exit, a room, anything. Ever so carefully, he inched his way into a crawlspace to one side of the cavern they found themselves in, dragging Dream after him. Only when they were both safely under stable rubble, he let the beam go and watched the hole they’d been stuck in collapse. His grip on Dream’s shirt collar tightened. _Just leave him_ , he thought. _Just leave him_. But he held onto his shoulders like his life depended on it. He couldn’t. 

With one hand, Sapnap dragged himself forward through the miniscule gaps in the rocks, and with the other, he clung to Dream’s shirt and pulled him across the floor after him, collecting dust and tiny pebbles. Dimly, through the cracks in the rubble he saw the warm glow of orange light, and felt the heat of it burn lightly on his face. _Lava_. 

Sapnap sat wearily on the smooth stone at the edge of the forge. It was hot - comfortingly so - but didn’t burn. The lava bubbled behind him. He considered dragging Dream to slouch up next to him, then considered that he didn’t have to be all that close to him to check on his labored breathing every so often. He eyed him suspiciously, the ragged form of his clothes, the way his hair looked like it had gone unbrushed for weeks, his face. 

_His face_. 

In the midst of saving him, Sapnap hadn’t noticed, but… there it was. Dream’s face. 

He looked painfully normal. Sapnap had almost expected… something else. What, he wasn’t quite sure, but whatever it was dissolved when he took a good look at him. He was just. A man. Just like any other. An alarming jolt shot up Sapnap’s spine. 

He turned to the lava and stared at it through the strain in his eyes. Wild little flames danced on its surface, bringing him an inkling of comfort. The other hunters were out there somewhere, he thought, safe and sound, waiting for him. Someone else was waiting for him too, he remembered. Someone important. His home.

Had Dream known all that when he saved his life? Or had he just lunged in without thinking? Sapnap scoffed. _What? A murderer choosing to act on a moral compass alone? Don’t be stupid._

He nearly dipped his fingers into the lava to feel the enveloping warmth he so craved, at least now that the evening breeze was settling in. The steel of his blade hilt pressed coldly against his hip, making him shiver. It was never this cold in the desert. He clutched the lighter that hung on a chain around his neck, nearly out of oil from how much he’d used it to start campfires the past month and a half. It seemed to sigh against his chest when he flicked it a few times, just to keep his hands busy. Around him, the world stilled eerily. 

He glanced at Dream - still unconscious - and watched his chest rise and fall steadily, holding down the sickness that arose in him from feeling relief at the sight. It was _bad_ that Dream was still alive. He’d intended to kill him a mere few minutes ago, when there wasn’t an entire mansion on top of them. But now… now it was different. 

“It’s not fun if I don’t get to kill him in an epic battle,” Sapnap reasoned aloud, poorly. “What’s even the point, then?” 

He moved to put his head in his hand, relaxing against the warm metal rail of the forgery, before a shrieking giggle stirred him to stand. 

Hushed whispers and high-pitched laughter surrounded him, seeming to come from within the walls - or those that were still intact. He drew his sword and held it firmly, hands stilled from the warmth of the lava. One by one, the small, ghost-like forms of vexes threw themselves out from within the walls and lunged for him. With relative ease he swung at each one of them, causing them to shriek and dissipate into nothing. The vexes lurched, reached, shrieked violently, even clashed with him from time to time, but not once did they get anywhere near him. He took three of them, four, five with one single swing of his sword. 

_I’m too good_. 

The vexes seemed to realize this at the same time as Sapnap, however. One of them took notice of Dream, lying breathing but unconscious on the ground behind him, and swept through the air towards him, sword lifted. Something horrible and completely unidentifiable arose in Sapnap, causing him to lunge forward and swipe at the thing before it could reach Dream. He took one aggressive step over Dream’s body, then another, glaring at the vexes, daring them to come closer. 

They certainly tried, but with everything Sapnap had, he wiped them all away, positively restless the entire time. He refused to let the words take form in his head, but for all he was worth, he wouldn’t let Dream die to a vex. Not after the last twenty minutes, at the very least. 

When the last vex was slain, something about the noise of Sapnap’s blade against the cold, rough ground must have stirred Dream more than the constant shrieking and giggling of the creatures themselves, because he jerked awake and immediately scrambled onto his hands and knees before he saw Sapnap crouching down before him. Sapnap thought their faces must have mirrored each other, because they both stared with incredulous disbelief, minds catching up to bodies. 

Dream’s breathing was labored, probably from having his body go through so many phases of torture at once. He glanced about, staring at the numerous small iron swords littered about the room, probably piecing together information in his head, from the way his eyes unfocused for seconds at a time. He glanced sharply back at Sapnap, who was just waiting for something to come out of _one_ of their mouths. Dream seemed to realize something, reaching his hand up to his face, and suddenly clasping it around his mouth, eyes wide. 

_What, dude? It’s just your stupid face_ , Sapnap thought distantly. 

Not a single word was exchanged between them before Dream was bolting towards the hole in the wall on the other side of the forgery. Sapnap lunged for him, reaching for his ankles to stop him, but he maneuvered through the wreckage on the other side like a fucking _worm_. Sapnap crawled through, finding his way by just barely missing Dream’s shoes as he scrambled away in front of him. Rocks shifted and the light disappeared and reappeared through cracks in somewhat-intact walls and ceilings, and within what felt like seconds and hours all at once, Sapnap was back outside, planting his feet on the plaster dust-covered grass just inches from the mansion’s remains. 

He realized a moment too late that Dream was a few metres in front of him, mounting Spirit. Mounting _his horse._

“Hey!” He finally shouted, incredulously appalled at what he knew was about to happen. With one swift kick to Spirit’s sides, Dream was sprinting away towards the desert they had come from, leaving Sapnap standing alone beside the wreckage, considering running after him on foot with nothing but the pure boiling rage in his heart to fuel him. 

“Sapnap!” Called a voice from behind him. He turned to see Ant, Bad, and George all approaching him with more relief in their eyes than Sapnap thought he’d ever see in a person. If he looked he was sure Bad was even crying. Antfrost leaped for him, hugging him tightly for a long, long while. 

“We thought you… we thought -” Bad tried to stutter through his misty eyes. 

“Jesus what is _wrong_ with you, you idiot, you could have _died_ -!” George overlapped, punching Sapnap in the arm, but Sapnap could tell he was glad to be standing there with him. 

“What _happened?_ ” Ant asked, clutching Sapnap’s coat like he might bring another house down on top of himself if Ant let him go. The warmth that was slowly building in Sapnap’s chest dissolved the moment he turned back to look towards the desert, where Dream and Spirit - _Sapnap’s goddamn horse -_ were now nothing more than a speck in the distance as the sun rose over the distant mountains behind them. He huffed and said nothing, making a silent vow to never consider anything besides slitting his throat the next time he saw him. 

_I didn’t save you,_ he thought. _I just gave you a little room to run._

* * *

Dream’s legs ached. Everything ached. He leaned, resting his lower back on the cantle, ignoring the pain and breathing deep. He took in oceans of air with every breath and tried not to feel the weight of the support beam on his shoulders, or see the tentative image of someone beneath him, shaking dust away from his eyes. He tried not to feel the overwhelming guilt or regret of turning around and saving that ingrate’s life instead of his own. He wiped the sweat and remains of rubble from his hands, still able to smell the burning wood and corrosive metal of the wreckage. Still able to feel the claustrophobia crawling its way into his skin while he wormed through the wreckage. A shiver made its involuntary way down his spine. He shook it away. 

He could have died there. _Fitting_. 

The arid wind flew past his ears, howling victoriously. Despite the blood in his teeth and the sting in his eyes - from the dust, he assured himself - Dream grinned bitterly up at the boiling sun. 

“Still alive,” he said to it, just challenging it to make it otherwise, Apollo help him. “Still alive,” _As it should be._

With one final, steady breath in his lungs and renewed vigor, he tightened his ruined white bandana around his nose and mouth, took a tight hold of the reins, and leaned down, giving the horse a friendly pat. 

“Spirit, right?” 

The horse gave an agreeable huff. 

“Let’s go for a ride. _Hyah!_ ” 

Dream could almost hear the music in the wind as the dust kicked up into a billowing cloud behind them.

The searing heat that graced the vast expanses of wasteland and desert ought to have bothered him, even slightly, but all he felt when the sweat ran down his forehead and caught on the edge of his bandana was relief. So long as he rode fast enough, feeling the borderline cool breeze on his cheeks, and took in the swathes of great big open land, he wouldn’t rather be anywhere else. He released the reins on Spirit as they moved through the land, seeing the far distant peaks of mountains and mesas as they passed, and threw his hands out to feel the wind on his body. It flew through his hair, through his shirt, graced the fresh scar across his torso, howled past the tips of his fingers. 

He matched his breathing to the steady beat of Spirit’s gallops, feeling himself be alone in the emptiness of the desertscape, seeing nothing but personless space for miles in any direction. The life of an outlaw suited him.

Time must have lost meaning to him in the midst of his meditative sprint, because when he next looked down and squinted into the distance, the shape of a town was beginning to take form. It was a small one, he noted as he rapidly approached. Only dust roads and a few rows of houses, probably a mining town. Nearer to it, he could see the small shapes of children running back and forth across the street, of ladies and their gentlemen walking to and from the parlor. A settlement, then. 

_There must be a reservoir nearby_ , Dream thought hopefully, amidst slowing Spirit and dismounting to hand him over to a ready stable boy once he had made his way to the edge of the town. 

“From out o’ town, mister?” said the stable boy through his lisp as he took the reins from Dream’s hand. Dream’s heart softened, with a subtle sigh of relief. _He doesn’t recognize me_. He reached out to ruffle the boy’s hair. 

“Sure am. Take care of him for me?” The boy beamed, revealing the gap in his teeth. It reminded Dream of someone. 

“O’course!” 

“Thanks squirt,” Dream said, tossing the boy more coin than he owed and walking towards the parlor. 

* * *

Antfrost hated riding bareback. He hated riding in general, in fact, one of the many reasons he sincerely regretted agreeing to joining a group of bounty hunters and chasing a violent outlaw across the land. The most efficient way to travel was by horse, so here Ant was, no saddle, Sapnap riding begrudgingly behind him, muttering this and that about how he was going to kill Dream with his bare hands when he came face to face with him again.

“Oh my _God_ , Sapnap,” said George, from a short distance away, riding _with_ a saddle, on his _own_ horse. “We get it! You saw Dream! And you’re gonna kill him, _we get it!_ ” 

“Alright now,” said Bad, carefully. “There’s no need to snap.” 

George and Sapnap continued to ride in tense silence after throwing each other nasty looks. Ant felt Sapnap cross his arms, and though he couldn’t see it, he was sure there was a childish pout to go with it. He pulled out his compass to escape some of the rising heat, intent on staring at it without actually using it for anything for a few moments, but when he felt the weight of it in his hands, a thought began to nag at him. He watched the shivering needle point in one tentative direction - the one they were traveling in. _It’s not supposed to look like that_. 

“Sapnap?” said Ant, weary of the tone he used. His riding companion was not in a spectacular mood, and he didn’t feel like wagering that being back in the heat wouldn’t start another insufferable argument, despite the good mood (most of) the group now found themselves in. At the very least their most solid lead no longer depended on the fickle yes or no answers of a handful of rocks. 

“What.” said Sapnap, shortly. 

“You, um. You saw Dream’s face right?” 

“Yeah.” 

“What did he look like?” 

Without hesitation Sapnap replied, “fucking _stupid_ , that’s what.” 

“ _Sapnap_ ,” Ant pushed. He wasn’t entirely sure if the information would help at all, but any at all was better than none. Sapnap uncrossed his arms and leaned his face on Ant’s back, sighing with irritation. Begrudgingly, he began to think aloud:

“He was… blond? Dirty blond. And his eyes were green, and he had freckles, real dumb lookin’ mother-”

“Language!” called Bad. Sapnap didn’t open his mouth again. 

Ant rolled the description around in his head. Once, twice, far too many times already. _It couldn’t be_ . No, there were plenty of blonds with green eyes and freckles this side of the west. There were surely far too many for this to be _that one_. He was almost afraid to ask the next question that was souring in his mouth, but he turned so that Sapnap could see him anyway. 

“Did he have a scar on his face?” he asked, tentatively. Sapnap straightened up. 

“Uh, yeah,” he said. “Right here.” He gestured a fingernail dragging across his face, just over the bridge of his nose. Ant tried to keep his face unreadable. 

“Why? Do you know him?” 

“No, no, just uh... wondering what he’s hiding under that mask.”

Ant turned back to face forward. 

It was impossible. And yet it wasn’t. All this time - this blasted, horrible, wasted time - he’d been hunting Dream, _tracking_ Dream, and he hadn’t realized the entire, awful time. 

_I’ve been hunting Clay, too_.


	3. Lovers and Others

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Karl and Velvet reflect on missing their hunters, Dream makes his escape from the settlement town, forcing the hunters to follow. Ant makes one realization after another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to keep thanking Angel because they are just the bomb dot com. Thank you for outlining, editing, drafting, proofreading, existing. You're amazing and I love you. 
> 
> And thank everyone else for reading! You're all great too!
> 
> Enjoy!

Karl’s leg bounced up on the leg of the stool so hard he was afraid he might break it. The parlor was busy this time of day, nearly every man in town desperate for a drink and some shelter from their wives and the midday heat. The place was full, a group of young ladies sitting near the window, playing poker and having a laugh, men in groups of two lingering about, drinking their drinks, too afraid to approach Velvet on their own. Call-house girls and boys were walking around, sitting in laps and serving drinks, having coin after coin tipped into their pockets.

Karl sat alone, at the edge of the bar, while Velvet handed out drinks to tired old cowboys who were due out to graze their herds an hour ago. He sighed, deeply, letting scenarios run through his head. He was supposed to be serving right now, but his fingers tapped wildly on the bar, the noise very close to driving him insane. 

He felt a hand come down on his, gently. 

“Hey. What’s the matter?” said Velvet, looking worried like a mother hen, which Karl supposed in some ways he was. He looked away from Velvet’s eyes, considering and reconsidering whether it was worth the effort of explaining until Velvet’s hand locked kindly into his, and his internal strength deteriorated. He sighed. 

“Don’t you think Sapnap’s bounty hunt is taking too long?” Karl said, finally. Velvet gave him a soft look. 

“Oh sugar, I know you miss him,” said Velvet, handing a foaming mug of beer to a waiting cowboy, removing his hand from Karl’s, confident that their conversation could continue in earnest. 

“Don’t you?” said Karl. “Ant’s not a bounty hunter. You’re never away from him this long.” 

“No, but he wanders off to study or work or what have you on occasion. And I’m always confident he’ll come back,” said Velvet, holding his head high with complete trust in his voice. Karl admired him, a sturdy rock in Karl’s tossing ocean of a mind. 

Karl’s heart rose, then sank.

“But… what if one day… he can’t?” 

Velvet considered the question carefully, holding patient eye contact with Karl, who was struggling not to look at the floor. Around them, the bustle of the parlor carried on, unknowing and oblivious. A gentleman kissed one of the parlor ladies’ hands and led her upstairs. Karl sighed, feeling the longing deep in his chest. It hurt more than he expected it to. 

“Is that what you’re afraid of?” 

Karls’ silence was reply enough. He bent his head down to put it in his hands, his own thoughts making him exhausted. He tried to push them away, but they remained with persistence. 

“Sometimes I think that way too,” said Velvet. Karl looked up, surprised. 

“Really? You?” 

“Hush, of course I do. The thought of Ant being hurt, or worse? That scares me.” 

Karl thought of Sapnap, trapped somewhere, held at gunpoint, trudging through the desert without food or water, captured, held hostage. He thought of Sapnap with blood running down his face, bruised and beaten. He screwed his eyes shut to block the sting of tears. _No no no_. 

“And all the while,” said Karl, “I’m just… sitting here. I can’t help him. I can’t do anything…” 

Velvet set down the mug he’d been cleaning with a bit too much force on the bar surface. 

“Now listen,” he said, stern and looking Karl directly in the eyes. “You may not be out here with him, but you’re very far from doing nothing.” He reached for Karl’s hands and held them with all the comfort a close friend could give, never once looking away from his face. Velvet had a way of calming with a stern enough look, as backwards as it was. “You’re here, reminding him he has someone waiting for him,” he said. “So long as Sapnap knows that he has something to come back home to, he always will. He’d never abandon his family.” His tone softened. “He’d never leave you alone. Not without putting up a heck of a fight first.” 

Warmth stung the corners of Karl’s eyes as he felt Velvet pull his hands away and return to his work and the tone shifted back to one of ease and familiar comfort. 

“Besides,” said Velvet, with finality, “you know the man. He’s a rock. An entire mountain could fall on his head and he’d walk away with nothin’ but a scratch. He’ll be fine, sugar.” 

Karl took a deep, sobering breath. He was right. He was always right. 

“And I’m _his_ rock.”

“There you go! Exactly!” 

“Thanks Velvet,” said Karl, returning to himself to find that his leg had stopped bouncing, and his horrible posture had improved, somewhat. A gentleman approached Velvet and removed his hat politely, a signal that Velvet needed to return to work. He let the man take his hand and begin walking him towards the staircase

“‘Course, hon. I’ll bet our studs are out there a minute away from collecting that bounty and coming home. Everything is going fine.” 

* * *

“This could be going better,” said Bad, to a pair of very irritated hunters and a witch. 

Sapnap glared at him rabidly, like a dog who did not want to be on a leash - all the more reason to keep him on a short one, Bad thought. George looked around, pretending to be uninterested, but not fooling anyone into believing he wasn’t having the worst possible time. And if Bad looked close enough he was sure he could actually see Antfrost’s fur matting from the stress. After days of travelling, giving Dream plenty of time to hide and who knew what else, Bad didn’t blame them all for the attitude. 

The town they stood at the center of was full of very kind and lovely people. Very well mannered and polite. They just also happened to be… wildly unhelpful.

“ _He’s here!_ ” they’d said, and said nothing more than that. _Here where??_

“ _He’s here in town, you’ll have to look for him._ ” 

“Alright,” Bad said to his hunters, forcing a smile onto his face. “This is an easy problem! We’re closer than we’ve ever been before! If we split up, we’ll get him for sure!” 

Antfrost rolled his eyes and grabbed George by the arm, pulling him in one direction while gesturing vaguely that Sapnap and Bad go in the other. It was a small town - the four of them on their own could cover it in its entirety. And yet still, Bad grew uneasy. 

“If one of us finds him, we fire two shots in the air to alert the others,” said Antfost, exhaustion making his tone sharp. Sapnap and George seemed to nonverbally agree. 

“I-isn’t that a bit excessive?” said Bad, but Ant was already pulling potions from off of his belt and downing them, speeding away with new _swiftness_ in his feet. He pictured two rockets flying upwards through the breeze, trailing sparks and exploding dangerously in the air, then looked down to see people gazing carefully towards him and Sapnap, tentative nervousness in their eyes. _It’s for their own good_ , he thought. _They don’t know Dream is dangerous_ , he thought, but an awfully sick feeling settled in his gut. 

Around him, the buildings of the town creaked with an eerie silence out of place in the midday of a new settlement town, until Bad realized it was the sound of nearly every villager cowering in their homes. Hiding. The sun beat down on the dirt roads as a straggler or two sped past, violently refusing eye contact.

Sapnap trudged along, dragging his feet in the dust, practically foaming at the mouth as his eyes darted around, hoping to catch a glimpse of that blasted green cape. 

A child, no older than nine or ten, face half dark and half pale porcelain white, scurried forth, coming to stop before them and gazing up at the sight, youthful fear growing in his eyes as he dashed away. Bad gave Sapnap a reprimanding slap on the arm, only to have him roll his eyes. 

“You don’t have to be so aggressive!” he said. Sapnap gazed down at him bitterly. 

“Bad, if you wanna waste time playing with kids, fine, go ahead. I’m here to do my job,” he said, and marched on with angry purpose. His hands were tightened into fists he could probably knock a house down with. And he had. 

Bad watched after him, incredulous for a moment before he huffed and stomped his foot down. _Well, fine then. Be that way_. He looked off to where the child had run off to, thinking maybe he could spend a couple of seconds apologizing and it wouldn't be the end of the world, and also praying silently that Sapnap didn’t break anything while he disappeared. He certainly didn’t want to leave the townspeople thinking they were a bunch of animals, whether they left with the outlaw in tow or not. 

The kid caught one glance at Bad walking towards him and squealed, rushing into a building. 

“Oh, it’s ok!” he called after them, following through the door. He found himself inside of a parlor, empty and dark - out of use for the hunters, surely. His footsteps echoed in the silence, and the chill of being out of the sun crawled into his skin. “Hello?” he called out, listening for sounds of movement. “We didn’t mean to scare you!” 

Tiny footsteps rustled behind the back wall of the bar. “It’s ok!” Bad called after them. “Come on out!”

When no sound came after, he approached the wall slowly, coming to a turn and suddenly faced with stairs leading down into a cellar. He considered giving up, turning around, leaving the poor kid to hide until the hunters found Dream and left - going beyond this point had to be considered trespassing - but when he listened one final time more for a voice, he was greeted with not one, but two. One alarmingly familiar. 

_The kid_ . Bad thought with a start, forgetting all else but the sudden need to rush down into the cellar and through whatever means necessary protect the child who was now stuck there with - dear Gods - a _murderer_. Yet just before he turned the corner, crossbow blazing, the clarity of the voices reached his ears. 

“It’s scary, Dream!” came a small voice, the one of the child. “The bounty hunters are scary!” Bad felt a pang of guilt in his heart. _We’re not. We don’t mean to be._ He dared a peek around the corner. In the dim light, he could barely make out the two figures, the vague silhouette of Dream holding the child warmly in his arms, running a steady hand across their black and white hair. 

“I know, buddy, it’s ok. It’s alright, Ranboo” said Dream gently. Bad’s arms went loose, unsure of exactly what he was seeing. _What is this? Is he marinating them?_ _Tricking them?_

“I don’t like them,” said the child - Ranboo. “Why do they want to hurt you?” 

_Because he’s wicked,_ thought Bad, _because he’s a kidnapper, and a killer!_ _Stay away from him!_ His heart sank. Was this how Dream had done it? Was this the false safety he’d preached to the others? Was he really so soulless as to be able to sound so sincere -- 

Bad felt sick.

He peeked over the wall again and watched in disbelieving awe as Dream reached - hesitated, but reached - and pushed his mask up and out of his face. Even with the lack of light Bad could see the worried sincerity in his features. The face of a cornered man who was trying to stay strong. The face of a man - a kind one - afraid not only for himself. The look stabbed him through the heart remorselessly. He knew that look. He’d been wearing it for a month and a half, maybe longer.

“They think I did something bad,” Dream explained calmly, though with Ranboo’s face pressed to his chest, he could look up, touching the back of his head to the wall he was leaning on, shutting his eyes tightly and praying silently to the heavens.

“You’re not bad!” said Ranboo, into Dream’s shirt, with the complete certainty in their words that only a kid could have. He reached his hands - tiny, innocent hands, each one a different color - up to Dream’s face, only able to cup half his face with them. Dream gave the child a weak smile. The fire in Bad’s heart died again. _What is this?_

Dream’s eyes held a pure softness that was impossible to fake. He looked at Ranboo the way Bad imagined himself to if he were in the same situation. With fondness, and protectiveness, and kindness. And all while the kid clung to his shirt for his dear life, or perhaps for Dream’s dear life, only stilling against Dream’s careful hand. The darkness clung to the two of them like fog, nesting them among the racks of barrels filled with alcohol and dry herbs hung on the wall. 

“I’m scared,” said Ranboo. 

“I know, buddy. It’s ok. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, alright?” 

As Dream pulled Ranboo into a safe embrace, green eyes glinting in the dimness as he searched for danger, Bad’s perspective shattered before him, like a bottle dropped to the ground from a million miles up. He could almost feel the glass shards cutting into his skin. _What is this? What is this??_

In his stupor, he let his wrist go slack, and the crossbow in his hands tapped against the wall he pressed his back to with a dull _clank_. Dream jerked up immediately, drawing Ranboo closer to him without hesitation, eyes darting frantically around, hand reaching up to pull his ugly mask back down. 

Bad whipped his head back around to hide behind the wall. His heart was so loud he could hear it, taste the beat in his mouth. He tried to blink away the adjustment to the darkness. Whatever this was, he thought, whatever it was… he’d be no part of it. 

With one last silent gulp of air he rushed back up the stairs soundlessly as possible. The early afternoon sun burned his eyes after spending just a few minutes in the cellar, but still he scanned the town, searching for the others. They had to get out of here. They had to leave. Bad had to leave.

He spotted Ant approaching Sapnap and George just a ways from the center of town. He watched as they exchanged a few frustrated words and caught himself worrying that perhaps they had found him, they’d found Dream and he’d escaped, before realizing that they couldn’t have. The kind, caring man who was still comforting a child in the cellar - that was Dream. And Bad was the one who was letting him get away. 

He took a gulp of air and took step after back-breaking step towards them, regaining his composure with every tread up and every footstep down. 

George leaned against a lamp post as Ant and Sapnap continued to discuss, looking rather bored. Sapnap rested his hand on his belt, near the holster of his crossbow. He turned away, done with the apparently very discouraging conversation. Ant’s ears pressed flat against his head. The three of them were just as usual, if a bit peeved. Bad tried to think of what he’d say to them if he’d seen nothing. If he’d heard nothing. Would they believe him? 

“Didn’t find anything I assume?” he said, approaching them with disquiet. His thumb swiped across the taut string of his crossbow. It had been drawn and ready to fire a moment ago. He felt uneasy. 

“Nothing,” said Sapnap, punctuating with a rough kick into the sand. George rolled his eyes and looked off into nothing, arms crossed and still leaning against the post. “That little turd is hiding too well, or he’s already gone and these idiot villagers are covering for him.” 

“I don’t think that’s plausible,” said Bad, far too quickly. Sapnap was too aggravated to notice. 

From the corner of his eye, he saw someone - a young lady - approach George and try speaking to him, but Bad, Sapnap, and Ant had moved away far enough not to hear what she was muttering. Among his broiling nervousness, Bad felt a twinge of nearly paternal pride make its way into his heart.

Sapnap and Ant continued to speak about tracking and violence but Bad watched, to subtly ease himself if nothing else, as George tried his damndest to turn the lady down kindly. As kindly as he could while being in a supremely bad mood. Bad thought he did just fine, but couldn’t for the life of him understand why he’d done it at all. 

“Sorry,” he saw George say, and the lady bent her head down frantically and turned back to where a friend was waiting for her, ready to console her for her loss. 

“Bad!” said Ant, snapping in his face. 

“Huh? Sorry, what?” said Bad. 

“We’re going to try tracking him again, we asked what you think,” said Sapnap. 

“We seriously have no other leads? We’re basically back to square one,” said George, seamlessly approaching the group again. 

Bad’s misery rose like the tide in his throat, burning him with the threat and salt of oncoming tears. He was lucky they could hardly see his eyes under the darkness of his hood, but if he spoke now he’d surely reveal the truth. He couldn’t lie, he couldn’t lie to them. He… 

“Hunters!” came a voice from beside them. A villager, approaching them out of breath and frantic. “Hunters,” he said again, coming to an exhausted stop before them. “The ranger. The - the outlaw! He’s gone! He’s taken his horse and run off, due north!” 

“ _What?_ ” said Sapnap, losing his temper again. “So he _was_ here?” He threw his hand off his belt, clenched into a fist so tight Bad feared he might be digging into his skin. The fire started in his eyes again, his desire to see Dream’s blood in the sand seemingly not quelled by time and distance. Bad wanted to retreat into the earth and never come back. This was awful. 

Beside him, George brightened, ever so slightly, that nobody but Bad and the rest of them might have noticed. Sapnap followed suit, driving his fist into his palm with purpose. Conflict simmered in Bad’s head. George’s glimmer of a smile made him want to curl up right there on the road, and he wasn’t sure he was supposed to feel that way at all. He hated it. He hated _this_. 

He wanted to see George feel the thrill of the chase the way he always loved to, the climb of their horses’ speed across the desert, the breeze in his hair, the sun on his skin, wanted to see Sapnap drive his blade into the air, shout into the wind, Bad wanted to feel what they felt. 

And now he wasn't sure he could. 

* * *

The inn was a quaint place. A plain, bare-bones little hole in the wall of the horrifically simple village the hunters found themselves in just as the sun set and the winds began to pick up. Compromising the vile company of roaches and rats, Antfrost made his sleeping place on a carpet on the floor - no animals allowed in the beds, according to the very rude innkeeper. The bitter smell of damp hardwood seeped through the poorly threaded wool, making him shiver. He’d hardly close his eyes at this rate. Through the foggy, probably never-cleaned window, he could see the moon making its gentle way across the sky, taunting him while it swam in a sea of blue silk and red velvet, near the horizon line. It was still early in the night. 

The stars on the far right of the sky danced their jovial, twinkling dance, the bell-like sounds of their motion sounding like laughter in Ant’s ears - malicious, teasing laughter at his own sore muscles and tired bones that could hardly hold him up to walk, much less dance. This twisting, winding journey was beginning to lose its adventurous luster, and everyone could feel it. If only he’d trusted his gut from the beginning. 

Beside him - closer to somewhere near his feet - George stirred in his bed, rustling the sheets so that they drifted gently over the edge of the mattress. Ant huffed and hopped up onto his feet soundlessly, moving to sit on the table by the window, refusing to waste another sleepless minute subjecting his back to the torture of the floor. He looked towards George with conflict in his eyes. 

There were two beds - if Ant would venture so far as to call them - in the pathetic little inn room, one of which was taken entirely by George. The other, Bad and Sap were sharing. Ant was shocked Sapnap had even agreed to it, but he knew he’d never lose to Bad’s paternal instincts, and with the fervor that George had been refusing to share, there seemed to be no other option. Ant’s paws flexed against the dusty window frame. He was lucky that the callouses that had formed over the months he’d been with the hunters protected him from splinters - he’d never been able to get those out without Velvet’s help before. 

Their breaths rose and fell steadily and unknowingly under his gaze, bringing Ant some semblance of peace to ease the irritating buzzing in the bags under his eyes. He raked his claws gently through his fur, trying to feel out the matts. 

_Under Dream’s mask_ , he thought, unprompted, _is someone I know. Knew_ . He winced as a claw made its way down onto his skin. _Under that mask_ , he thought, _is Clay._

What to make of this exactly, Ant wasn’t sure. He was still halfway through trying to convince himself that he was wrong. He had to be. It was hardly possible to reconcile the person he was thinking of, and a cold-blooded killer. The person he remembered wasn’t Dream. The person he remembered was kind, and friendly, if a bit loud and excitable at times. Clay wouldn’t hurt a single hair on a child’s head the way he was so sure Dream had. But the longer he thought about it, the more unlikely it became that they were two different people. Dream’s voice sounded so irritatingly familiar - even through that stupid mask he wore.

“ _Oh come on now_ ,” rang in Ant’s head like a scratched record. “ _Oh my gosh_.” Clay’s own inflections and tonal peaks and valleys, they were the same way as Dream’s, weren’t they? 

Ant’s head sank into his paws. _Whatever is happening,_ he thought, bitterly, _I’m not going to like it._

The night passed like a silk ribbon out of a bow, slipping through Ant’s fingers as he pulled at its edges, begging for a moment’s rest. His eyes drooped painfully as the sun rose, wishing desperately that they could close and stay closed for twenty four consecutive hours, after having gotten eight open ones instead. As Bad wandered around the room in his fatherly way, making sure everyone woke up ready to have another horrible day, Ant readorned his poncho and satchel, feeling the weight of them both on his shoulders far too heavily. Sapnap and George tended to rise groggily, so there was no dialogue to be had with them until at least two miles from town. Bad approached him, far too bright for the hour. 

“Good morning, Ant! did you sleep well?” he asked, cheerily. Ant’s exhaustion eradicated his suspicion in an instant. 

“Uh, yeah a few hours.” Ant lied, cringing internally. _If only_. 

“That’s good. Sleep is important for a clear mind!”

Ant wanted to drop dead. “Sure.” 

He handed Bad the supplies they had set out on the table to clean the day before so he could pack them away in his saddle bag. He peeked into his cantine and sighed. 

“You said the parlor was closed yesterday? That might turn into a problem.” 

“There’s a reservoir a mile north of town,” said George, wiping the sleep from his eyes, only speaking to supply the information. He expected nobody to look in his direction, and nobody to address him even once, absolutely set on murdering he who came within two feet of him in the mornings. Beside him in his own bed, Sapnap rolled off the mattress and gazed around dead-eyed to gain his footing. 

“That must be why Dream bothered to stop here for so long,” said Bad. His expression dropped for a second, then brightened artificially again. “That’s ok, we’ll get him for sure this time!” 

Ant’s stomach twisted with apprehension. He wasn’t sure he wanted to “get him” at all. Not anymore. 

“Sure we will, Bad,” he said. His shoulders ached from sleeplessness. As George and Sapnap stretched and yawned themselves into the world of the living, he followed Bad through the door and to the stable, from which a forlorn-looking stable boy walked out and handed off the reins of all three of their horses. As they got to work on saddling them, they basked in the awkward tension that hung in the air between them as they did. 

In Ant’s pocket, his runes buzzed forlornly, lonely and isolated. He picked one out and held it in his palm, staring calmly. Gebo. _Huh._ He pulled another. Perth. _You’re being unhelpful this morning_ , he told them. 

“Did you notice,” said Bad casually, tightening the strap of Muffin’s saddle. “Yesterday, some ladies were talking to George?” 

“Huh?” said Ant. he looked up from his runes and placed them back in his pocket. They squealed at him, high pitched in irritation, but he ignored it. “Uh, sure. Good for him I suppose.” 

Bad reached into his saddle bag and pulled an empty potion bottle from it to hand to Ant. “ _That_ is yours _._ Yeah, he’s getting a lot of attention lately.”

Ant thought he sounded proud, then realized he probably was. If there was ever a paternal figure in the world to replace the absent fathers of a ragtag group of messed up bounty hunters, it was going to be Bad. He placed the potion bottle into his own saddle bag, setting a mental reminder to brew something useful in it later. 

“If only he’d stop rejecting them. Then we’d really be in business,” said Bad. 

“What was that?” said Ant. A puzzle was coming together in his head. A trivial one, given the thoughts that had kept him awake that night, but a puzzle nonetheless. 

“Hm?” 

“He rejects them? All of them?”

“Of course. Do you see him with a lady on his arm?” 

“But… Last week, when we stopped in Wetherford I saw him… talking to some girl at the parlor. Minx, I think? Didn’t he like her?” 

Ant turned to saddle Spirit only to realize he wasn’t there. He felt a twinge of remorse for Sapnap, then remembered all the bickering he’d done yesterday and instantly threw it away. He and Bad began to lead the horses through the streets, watching the working villagers rise from sleep and walk from building to building. The sky slowly turned from orange to pink, and then finally to blue. 

“I guess not. It’s a shame, really. If George was going to be with any girl, I thought it would have been her.”

With that, the idle gossip melted away and left Ant’s thoughts alone in his head. They stood waiting outside the inn for their lazier traveling companions to join them. Sapnap emerged first, his hair a mess without his bandana to hold it in place. His shirt was almost fully unbuttoned, but at least he was wearing one, and his coat slung over his shoulder. Bad threw a motherly comment about how he was going to get a sunburn at him, but he yawned and mounted Muffin with a tired grunt. 

George appeared shortly after, having paid the innkeeper and fixed himself up to be presentable. Ant could only guess where he’d found a hairbrush. He’d walked out the door ready to say something, but caught a glimpse at Sapnap and whipped his head towards the floor. 

“Jesus, Sapnap, put a shirt on, bloody hell.”

“ _BLoOdY hELL_ ,” mocked Sapnap, doing up a single button. “There. Prude. This is why you can’t get a girlfriend.” 

“I really hate you.”

“Oh, you two, don’t start,” said Bad, already punching his in-charge ticket for the day. “It’s too early.”

Sapnap and George got into a childish, silent battle of sticking their tongues out at each other while Ant mounted his own horse and the group trudged off to the north, leaving the sun to their left and the inn in the dust. 

The town soon fell away into the distance behind them, their mission dragging them by the collars straight back into the desert. Ahead of them - far ahead - were the cliff faces of a small mesa, where Ant reasoned the reservoir must be, promising shade and the cool, long-forgotten taste of water. They were not far, only a few hours of travel without over-exerting the horses, and all they could really do without anything to feed or water them with. Until they reached the wavering horizon, Ant would have to stare at the cliff faces and watch them get painstakingly closer with every arduous minute that passed by.

He turned to George, who had released the reins on Blue to raise his arms up to the heavens and stretch. The puzzle was completed. It had been completed for a while. But Ant had to make sure the picture was what he thought it was. Was it any of his business? No, perhaps not. But for all the things he knew about George the bounty hunter - admittedly, not much - he had to know just one more. 

“George,” he said, hesitantly. “Can I talk to you?”


	4. A Drowning Sensation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dream reflects on his rather scattered gameplan, and George and Sapnap reflect on a very stirring conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh hey this took a little while but here it is! There will be some cool action and rootin' tootin' point n' shootin' in the next chapter I promise, I PROMISE ok. But we need some ~trauma~ first. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Dream’s soul - whatever was left of it - was shattered. He clung to the oversaturated wood of the water basin like a lifeline. The reservoir that surrounded him ran through caverns and walkways deep underground, leaking through hot vents in the ground and firing burning, suffocating steam to steep into his lungs and labor his breathing. The ride to this place lasted hours, but felt like it had hardly existed in the span of time, as though he’d mounted his horse and suddenly appeared next to this ocean of bitter emotions and taste of iron and salt. His mask hung heavy on his face. He’d done a poor job of fixing it back in town. Or maybe the water just weighed it down.

Every breath that left him was a desperate heave to regain his footing, to mount Spirit and get far, far away from here. And yet still the pace of his lungs quickened. 

His knees grazed the dusty floor, paved poorly with odd stones and boulders of different sizes, like one might find in a garden. Ferns grew from the cracks in the rocks - the truest sign of any natural water for at least twenty miles in any direction. He pressed his palm to a cold, wet stone and tried to feel the pulse of the earth as the fresh water flowed through it like blood. The beat steadied him, if only slightly. 

From a step behind him, Spirit whinnied curiously, wondering why they had suddenly stopped, before giving up on figuring it out and dunking his face into the water basin to take a well-deserved sip. Dream eyed him, noting the color of his pelt - a rich chestnut brown - the beat of his hooves against the rocks and spaces between them, the flick of his ears to deter flies. He listened for the sound of the water, still and unmoving, rippling where Spirit touched it and where Dream’s fingers just barely grazed its surface as he clawed the basin as though trying to split the wood. 

Tentatively, his grip loosened and his hand came to rest on his chest, where he counted the long, difficult seconds in between each breath. 

He forced all thoughts of the past twenty four hours away. There had been no ride from the town to the reservoir, where he’d found that the pace of Spirit’s gallops were driving him into near-insanity for a brief few seconds at a time. There had been no hunters before that, scouring the town like bloodhounds, clinging to his scattered trail like vultures. There had been no heart-wringing moment in the cellar where for a few seconds he clung to Ranboo familiarly, feeling his little heartbeat - alive and well, and afraid - as the threat of danger flashed before his eyes like a broken horror film reel. There had been no moment of excruciating memory where he’d remembered dust in his lungs, and rocks pressing down on bodies desperate to escape, and small hands clinging to his desperately. There had been no fear, in fact. There had been no Ranboo. 

Dream turned his head up to look at the sky through the steam. The thin film of water clinging to the air parted briefly to allow him to see the sun and the shape of the clouds. He studied them for a moment, letting coherent thought return to him. He inhaled steam and exhaled clarity. He dipped his fingers into the cool water and imagined diving headfirst into the basin just to feel the chill of it seeping into his clothes and down to his bones. 

He refrained, turning instead to look at the vast desertscape behind him. Distantly - at least an hour’s travel from where he stood - a small and vaguely defined cloud of dust was rising. He could hardly see them - in fact he hardly bothered squinting - but he knew they were there. Those persistent, irritating, perhaps a little bit entertaining little insects that were always a step or two behind him. Amusing, even, if he dared to admit it, which he didn’t. He didn’t much care for reliving memories he preferred to repress every few days, no matter how exhilarating it was to hear the sound of iron blade on iron blade, or the brief  _ swish _ of an arrow just narrowly missing his face. Thinking one hunter was sort of handsome wasn’t enough to justify the dull ache he felt in his heart after running away from a collapsed mansion that had nearly killed him - and the fact that not even the near-death had been what concerned him. 

He had to make an escape now, again. How exactly, he wasn’t sure. He could run across the desert, but they were close enough to him now that they’d be able to track him easily if he did, and hoping to outrun them was a risky play at best. He was in no shape for a fight. Outnumbered, and in the state he was in - of mind and body - he’d lose for sure. 

He looked back in the opposite direction. Just on the other side of the water basin, mesa cliffs rose grandiosely above him, boasting cave systems thorough and complex that dove down into the earth, housing the natural filtration that the reservoir depended on deep underground. Dream would rather die than enter. But he held each alternative in one hand, balancing them out like they were paperweights, and he a broken scale of justice. 

_ Whatever kind of ‘justice’ this is _ , he thought. 

In one hand, he held the paperweight of poor reason. He could run, dashing through the desert with a sword and a horse, and far too little charisma to carry him through it. He might arrive at some town or structure before the hunters could catch up to him, but the idea weighed heavy in his hand.  _ Unlikely _ . 

Yet, on the other hand was the paperweight of an extremely undesirable, claustrophobic nightmare. He could already hear the dripping of water on wobbling stones, coming from everywhere, loud and unpleasant in his ears. He could feel the creaking of the supports breaking beneath his feet. 

The dust cloud behind him grew bigger every second. Everything was too loud. 

With one last, shaking breath, he pulled his hair taught and tied it off, allowing the hot breeze from the steam and the inside of the caverns before him grace the skin of his neck. Paved stone after paved stone, he moved closer to it, travelling the long way around the water basin, leaving Spirit and his rationality behind him, every one of his joints going slack. 

“I’d like to see your fancy magic work underground, fuckers,” he said out loud, to himself and to Spirit, who was not and would not follow him. The charm that he usually used to hide himself from embarrassing emotions and fear was gone. It was all gone. He looked at his hand, assessing the violent shaking.  _ Whatever, it’s fine _ . 

He stepped through the cave entrance. 

* * *

George felt the fabric of his bandana tight around his neck. It withheld the battering abuse from the dust and hot air that it protected him from, but he still felt like he was inhaling rocks. 

Blue whinnied, complaining about lagging behind and the way George’s legs went slack at his sides, kicking him accidentally on occasion. 

“Sorry,” said George absently. 

Just ahead, Ant glanced back at him, offering a comforting grin that cut through the tension like a butter knife through lead. George glanced down at the ground, letting his bandana fall so that he could stop feeling the heat of his own breath on his face. It was starting to itch. 

He was being obvious. That must have been it. Why else would Ant have asked him? 

“ _ You know you can tell me, _ ” he’d said.  _ As if I could _ , George thought, through the dread building in his heart. 

Blue whinnied again, in a  _ what’s the matter _ sort of way. 

“Nothing, nothing, it’s nothing,” George said through his teeth, giving the horse a rough pat. “It’s nothing.” 

The dust began to bother his eyes, so he pulled his bandana up again, up close to his lash line. He wanted to bury his whole face in it when Ant glanced back at him again. He was being too obvious. 

_ “You know you can tell me,” _ he’d said.

_ “I don’t know what you’re talking about,”  _ George had replied, wanting to drown. 

Ant had reached forward to put a hand on George’s shoulder, which George had flinched away.  _ I’m sorry _ , he’d thought.  _ I didn’t mean to _ . Ant had sighed and gripped his pommel gently, thinking through his next words carefully. George had watched idly, fearfully, as Ant’s ears twitched against the side of his head. He’d been trying very hard, George knew.  _ I’m sorry _ . 

_ “You know,”  _ Ant had said, finally,  _ “I really didn’t want to come on this mission with you guys.” _ George had eyed him suspiciously, wondering where the last conversation had gone.  _ “I thought you were a bunch of idiots to take a bounty on a runaway murderer, no matter how high the reward was.” _

_ “Then why did you come?” _ George had asked, biting the bait for lack of a better thing to say. 

_ “I don’t know. Probably because Sapnap managed to convince me somehow. Honestly, the way he was going on about how helpful I would be, you’d think you guys were dying out here by yourselves. And I trust him, you know? We’ve known each other a long time.”  _ He’d taken a moment to look fondly off into nothing, remembering something that was out of George’s reach.  _ “To be honest, I still don’t want to be here. I’m tired and I’m hungry and thirsty and, heh, I could use a shower.”  _

George had offered him a laugh.  _ This isn’t that hard. _

_ “But I’m here anyway. See, I’ve gotten to understand why Sapnap does what he does. And Bad too, I suppose. He’s got motivation keeping him going.” _

_ “Motivation?”  _

Ant had nodded. Just once, so that George felt like he knew exactly what he was talking about. A strange emotion flooded him, just because of one stupid nod. 

_ “He misses him, too. Every day. Even if he doesn’t say it. But he’s the reason he gets out of bed in the morning.” _

An undefined silence had washed over them while George took the time to think very hard about far too many things at once. He’d given up at some point, resorting instead to a simple question that he was compelled to unlike anything else. 

_ “What’s his name?” _ he’d asked, defeated. Ant had smiled, making George’s heart ache a bit. 

_ “Karl.”  _

George looked up again, catching a glimpse of Ant, engaged now in conversation with Sapnap. He caught the shape of “Karl” and “Velvet” falling from his lips, and felt a bitter sting in chest. He’d been too obvious, or maybe Ant was just observant. Intuitive, even. Maybe it was something to do with his magic, George thought, only marginally realizing how stupid the thought was. He looked away before he could meet Ant’s eyes again. 

_ “I’ve got my motivation too,” _ Ant had said, edging onwards as though wading through waist high water he couldn’t see through, and George was submerged completely, unable to breathe. He hadn’t found a single thing to say, twisting the reins in his hands until they wrung around his fingers, making them pale. He tried hard,  _ so _ hard, to push down the feeling of sickness that rose in his throat. He swallowed all the words that got stuck in his mouth, saying nothing instead. 

_ “Ok,”  _ he’d said.  _ “And what if I am… like that.” _

Ant had looked at him for a good long while. George had begun to sweat under his gaze, and not because of the heat. 

_ “Then that’s fine.”  _

George pulled down his bandana again, then untied it and shoved it a little too hard into his saddle bag. He’d just deal with breathing in dust once in a while. He felt too vile to breathe through the fabric. His grip on Blue’s reins loosened. With one hand he held onto it limply, and with the other he scratched and scraped away at the goosebumps that rose persistently on his arm. He let his hair fall onto his eyes, blocking the view ahead and the light of the sun. Everything about this was wrong. 

_ “Then that’s fine.” _

He didn’t want to think about why that simple phrase lifted the weight of mountains off of his shoulders, a weight he’d been unknowingly holding. The tension in his body had dissolved into a breathless relief he didn’t know was possible - a very specific and unfamiliar comfort. 

His body was a dam, holding back far too much water, and it seemed inevitable that it would break eventually. Now his mind was tossing around in a stormy sea that had been building for years and years, and he was stuck in it without a lifeline. He was drowning. And if ever he felt like the coldness of the water was a comfort - if a violent one - from the heat that tended to sear him dry, melting his inhibitions away, the bitter taste of salt in his mouth and on his skin was enough to rip him from it. 

_ “The way I see it,” _ Ant had said, after a long and arduous pause,  _ “Sapnap and I should consider ourselves lucky.” _

George had looked at him with nothing but disoriented turmoil in his eyes. 

_ “How’s that?” _ he’d said. 

_ “Our home isn’t a place, it’s people. Two people. I think there’s beauty in that, isn’t there? Beauty? Power?”  _

_ Power? _

_ “I suppose. I don’t really get it.”  _

_ “Well? When you think of home, what comes to mind?”  _

George had thought, offering Ant only his most honest attempt. He’d refused to say his father’s home. That long lost but never forgotten cesspool of darkness, weightlessness and desperation. That wasn’t his home, and it never had been. So what was? The rusty, cheap inns and forlorn ghost towns that he settled in when he went after one target or another? Hardly. 

_ “Nothing, I guess,”  _ he’d said, simply. 

Ant had taken a moment to look at him with careful longing. 

_ “Well. You’ve always got one with Velvet and me. And Sapnap and Karl. If you want it.” _

With that he’d ridden ahead, offered to switch the duty of carrying Sapnap with Bad, falling back into step with their easy conversations. At least, they seemed easy now. After all that. 

A disgust had settled neatly in George’s throat, where it had stayed and continued to stay even now. A familiar sensation that he had spent years tailoring, allowing to seep through the tension in his muscles, through the blood in his veins. An impression with a part of himself that Ant had suddenly come and unlocked with a short and bitter conversation in which, George faced it, Ant had been the only one saying anything at all. 

This feeling, it was with himself, wasn’t it? It had always been with himself. 

Ant wasn’t like him. The way he loved was pure, and sweet, and something George couldn’t have. Sapnap was annoying - at times insufferable - but George would put his life in his hands just as easily as Sapnap would in his.  _ They _ were different. They were better. 

Everything about this was wrong. 

_ “If you want it.”  _

Of course he wanted it. Only a fool wouldn’t. 

_ This is poison, in me. This feeling is poison _ . 

Could Ant taste it? Could Sapnap? Karl and Velvet?

George refused to find out. He refused to force them to know the antipathy he had for himself, for that one, abhorrent little part. How could he bring it to them? How could he bring himself to call other people “home” when he couldn’t even call his own body “mine”? Whether they regretted having him there or not, he refused. He refused. 

“Whatever, Ant!” Sapnap said, playfulness filling his voice to the brim. Their comfort made George envious.  _ Poison _ . “If it wasn’t for  _ my _ boy, Velvet wouldn’t have  _ half _ the business he does.” 

“Keep dreaming, dumbass,” Ant said, giving Sapnap a shove. There was no malice in it. Not an ounce. Laughter filled the dusty air. The sun beat down on nobody but George. He wished he was back in the dark, behind a locked door. Ant caught his eye once more before George pulled his hat down to completely shield his eyes. 

_ I’m sorry _ . 

* * *

Everything about the day was nearly as horrible and abhorrent as the day before, the heat was still unbearable, eating at his skin like he was sat on a frying pan, and the constant sound of a snake hissing when one of the horses stepped over their dens was driving him insane. But still, Sapnap found that somehow, it was more bearable than before. At least for all but one of them. 

“Hey Ant?” he asked, quietly so as not to disturb the one member of the group that looked as though he wanted the entire world to come crashing down onto him. “What’s with George?” 

“Don’t worry about it,” said Ant, far too quickly. There was a beat of perplexed silence.

“Not buying it,” said Sapnap. 

“Is it about the girl?” 

“Gosh, nothing gets past you does it?” 

“Hey, come on.” 

Ant sighed deep - Sapnap saw the sag in his shoulders. His ear flicked once while he pondered in silence. 

“Yeah, I guess it’s about the girl.” 

“What happened?”

“It’s… complicated,” Ant said, twisting his reins through his paw pads. Sapnap had a feeling it really wasn’t. 

“Is he…?”

“Yeah. He’s like us.” 

“Oh.  _ Oh _ . You asked him? Are you sure?” asked Sapnap, suddenly very interested. 

“Yes.  _ Yes _ , christ. Do  _ not _ talk to him, do you hear me? I’m starting to think it’s not as simple as all that.” 

Sapnap crossed his arms and - he refused to say it was  _ pouting _ .

“It never is,” he said. 

Far ahead, the mesa began to sprawl out before them, multicolored cliffs rising like heavy ocean waves. Why Dream had cornered himself, Sapnap wasn’t sure, but he allowed himself to be guided by the weight of the compass’s cool silver in his palm - a small comfort among all the ways he found himself doubting his purpose. 

He reached around to feel the sting of his finger on the edge of his sword, hung flat across his back. The metal rang with the sound of tearing flesh and splattering blood. With the burn in his eyes as the beauty reflected the light of the sun back at him, casting a golden halo around it. With the dance of the fire as he cast it into the embers to watch the traces of dried blood and cracks in the metal dissolve away, leaving it shining, and perfect. The symbol of justice, he liked to think. A tool of divine retribution. 

He loved using it, always had and always would. 

_ But not on him, _ he thought, grimly, clutching the compass hard enough that its edges dug lines into his palm. 

_ Not anymore. _


	5. Oppressive Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hunters find themselves at a juncture, and Dream finds himself underground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> literally wrote this chapter in a day because I was so excited about all these scenes, so if it sucks a little bit, I am deeply sorry. Thank you once again to Angel for keeping me working all day, I would have never been able to focus for 12 consecutive hours without you. 
> 
> And also, hey Bitter. This chapter's for you <3.
> 
> Enjoy!

Ant took care not to step on the ferns growing from the arid ground as he dismounted his horse and landed soundlessly on the cold paving stones surrounding the reservoir’s water basin. The water was still, disturbed only slightly by the ripples when the horses dipped their noses in to take long, rewarding sips. Ant bent his head over the edge too, abandoning decorum in favor of the deliciously refreshing taste of cave-cool water. Sapnap and Bad followed suit, raising their cupped hands to their faces and closing their eyes in silent bliss. 

George, meanwhile, was glued to the stone he stood on beside Blue, staring off into one direction.

“George?” said Bad, oblivious to the woes Ant was sure he’d forced George to go through an hour before. “Are you gonna have some water?”

Sapnap glanced rapidly between Bad, Ant, and George, trying his damndest to think. Ant could see the gears turning in his head. He looked to the skies and prayed Sapnap wouldn’t say anything stupid. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Don’t tell me you’re still not done sulking about whatever?” 

Ant and George both threw him the same sharp look, daring him to say one more word until he clamped his mouth shut and returned to awkwardly filling his cantine. Bad stood in the middle of the tension, looking rather stuck. 

“I’m not  _ sulking _ , idiot,” said George. “ _ Look _ .” 

Across the basin, grazing on ferns and ambling about lazily, was a horse. A very familiar horse. 

“ _ SPIRIT!”  _ cried Sapnap, throwing caution and his cantine to the wind to run around the basin and throw himself at the animal, hugging it tightly. Ant wanted to stop him, but decided against it. For one thing, the more distance between Sapnap and George, the better - they had a tendency to quarrel, and he was the last person in the world who wanted to deal with it now - and for another, despite the nervous itch he felt for fear that Dream might still be around, he’d not come between Spirit and Sapnap for one more second more if his life depended on it. The way he refused to let go of the poor thing once he had his arms around him was proof enough of how desperately he’d missed having his best friend around.

Bad watched the scene fondly as he picked up Sapnap’s cantine and continued to fill it for him, but beside him, thoughts began to turn in George’s head. 

“So he’s still here,” he said, putting his chin in his hand and staring at the ground in search of something. Ant seized the opportunity.

“How do you know?” he asked. George looked at him for one brief second, considering his reply before he dove into his favorite little world - the hunt.  _ Perfect _ , Ant thought.  _ He’s out of his head _ . 

“Why would he take off into the desert without a horse? He knows we can track him, and he knows there’s no way he’d be faster on foot. There’s no train line nearby, no town besides the one we all just left, and what, he’d just get to a huge lake to refuel his horse and then make off without it?”

“ _My_ horse!” called Sapnap from across the basin. George ignored him.

“Unlikely,” he said. “He’s either hiding somewhere out here, waiting to strike at us, or -” he took his compass from his pocket - something even Ant hadn’t thought to do until now. The needle spun every which way, unsure of where to point. A bright, slow grin made its way onto George’s face, a rare but very thrilling sight indeed. “He’s below us.” 

Ant stood in stunned silence. He must have been delirious from the heat, from the relief of finally having some water to drink, but it all made perfect sense. 

How George was able to jump so seamlessly between what must have been a two hour period of intense and uncomfortable self-reflection, directly back into the chase with a clear mind and objective, Ant wasn’t entirely sure. But it was something to watch. 

As the hydration made its way to his head, he finally noticed the violent buzzing in his pocket. He reached in eagerly and grabbed three runes.  _ Ehwaz. Berkanna _ . And  _ Gebo _ , again. An intrigued confusion flooded him. He read them in the order they intended him to.  _ Forward, forward _ , they said, excitedly.  _ Forward. Go. Go!  _ He put them back before they got too loud. An anticipation for something he couldn’t yet sense filled him like a bottle. 

_ What’s about to happen? _ he thought.  _ Oh Gods, what’s about to happen? _

George’s expression continued to lift. Ant wanted to smile with him. Wanted to be glad that he was out of the pool of distress Ant hadn’t meant to throw him into. And he was - truly he was! But a brewing uneasiness made its way into his chest. His runes continued to buzz, and he resisted the growing urge to ask them a question. As them  _ the  _ question. They wanted to tell him very badly, it was obvious. It rang involuntarily in his head. Alright. Safe.  _ Is he? Will he be?  _

Tentatively, he clutched a rune between the claws of his thumb and pointer finger and dragged it slowly from his pocket.  _ Laguz _ . He stared at it with mild irritation, as he often did when they gave him an answer he was unsure how to process. It gazed back at him, unmoving and smug between his fingers, like it wanted to stick its tongue out at him and say  _ just wait and see _ . He shoved his hand into his pocket to move all the runes to his saddle bag. He’d have no more of them ruining a good thing. He turned back to George with as genuine a smile as he could muster, allowing the surrounding steam to cloud his head.

“Guys!” said Sapnap, rifling through Spirit’s saddle bag. “It’s all his stuff!” 

Without skipping a beat the three made their merry way towards Spirit and all the goods he carried. The sun that glided overhead was just about to pass over the cliffs and provide them all with comforting shadow, but it gazed at them now, curiously, as they rifled through the things Dream had foolishly left behind. 

“Why wouldn’t he just take all this?” Bad wondered aloud, shoving a large pouch of ender pearls into the bag slung over his shoulder. “There’s so much good stuff in here!” 

Ant pondered it for a bit, only mildly distracted by all the shiny glittering resources stuffed into Spirit’s bag. There was obsidian, flint-and-steel, food, even  _ diamonds _ tucked away in there, but Bad had a point.  _ What is all this doing here? _

“Good question,” said George, mulling it over in his head. Ant joined him in his pondering, but for the life of him he couldn’t understand. He tried voicing his thoughts - sometimes answers came when he and Bad put their brainstorming into words. 

“He must have known we were coming for him,” he said. “That’s why he fled the town.” 

“Exactly, so why would he dump all his stuff off for us to obviously find and then run into a cave with nothing but, what, a  _ sword _ ?” said Bad. 

Sapnap chimed in, his arms still thrown languidly over Spirit’s back - the remnants of a passionate hug. 

“Maybe it’s a part of his plan?” he offered. 

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” George said, frustrated. Ant threaded through the shifting tide carefully, watching with even tone as George continued to think aloud. “Whatever kind of plan would require him to give up all his resources would be too high risk for any possible outcome he could think up. He’s outnumbered. And now with all his stuff? He’s decently outmatched, too. He’s too smart for that.” 

Among the tumultuous frustration that was beginning to send George into a slightly disassembled state, Ant sensed a hint of something else.  _ Admiration _ , perhaps?

Ant’s disquiet wavered. George could never go back to thinking about himself now. There was not a chance in the world he would admit it, but Ant knew the truth - as he always did. George loved this game. 

“Smart? Tch- yeah, I  _ guess _ ,” said Sapnap, dragging his words out annoyingly. Bad gave him a soft smack across the back of the head, as a motherly warning to shut it. “So then what’s the point of this?” Sapnap tried again. Spirit whinnied impatiently, feeling crowded. 

George backed off of him, as if he could understand, and began to pace. 

“I don’t know,” he said. 

A long silence passed. Bad kicked at the dirt below his feet, admiring a fern as it curled into the steamed air. Ant watched them both, a million different reasons for the growth of his unease beginning to bite viciously at his feet. He swatted a few of them away, wanting desperately to think that he felt unsafe, rather than unsure. He rummaged through the saddle bag some more, to keep his traitorous thinking at bay, only for his paw to bump into a sharp corner. From the bag he pulled a small, crude wooden box, emblazoned with an equally crude symbol - that of an open eye on the center of the lid. He opened it, already knowing what was inside. 

_ The magician. The emperor. The king of swords.  _ He flipped through.  _ The lovers, the two of chalices. The hanged man. _ Ant silently pocketed the cards. 

They hummed familiarly as he held each one in his hands.

A thought wormed its way past his carefully established defense.

_ Clay is down there _ , he thought, despite himself. He shook his head, as if that would shake the thought away, but it persisted.  _ Clay. He’s down there. What has he done? _

Ant was faced with a conundrum, as he heard Sapnap distantly suggest they “just go down there, crossbows blazing.” A conundrum that made him squirm more than the way the cold steam made his fur press flat against him. It crawled its way down his throat and trapped him silent.

Either everything he knew about Dream was wrong, or so was everything he knew about Clay. His runes nearly shouted at him across the basin from his saddle bag. He winced as he ignored their cries.  _ What’s about to happen? _ he thought. _ Which Dream is the real one? _ Sapnap marched through the cave entrance before them, just as the last ray of sun disappeared from above with a brief flash. Bad and George tentatively followed him, leaving Ant bitterly behind. 

_ I guess this is where I find out. _

* * *

“Come on, Georgie!” 

_ There it was. The annoying voice in his head. _

“Come on, come and get me!” 

“Get back here!” 

_ That annoying little criminal, skittering just out of his reach. George could turn all the corners he wanted, weave through all the canyons and valleys and flatland he saw, and still he’d be out of his reach.  _

“Come on, George,  _ fight me! _ ”  _ he said.  _

_ And George did. For all he hated himself for it afterwards, when rationality returned to him, he did. And gods, did he love it. Gods, did he crave it like nothing else. His arrows just barely missing, Dream flying at him with a sword and him dodging it just in time. The dance that they did around each other, the game that they played. It was exhilarating _ . 

“George!”  _ Dream called to him, his voice bouncing off the walls _ . 

“ _ George _ !!” 

“H-huh?” said George. He was in a cave, he remembered. And it was Antfrost calling him, not Dream. 

“What? Sorry, I-” he stammered. 

“Snap out of it!” Said Sapnap. “He could be anywhere”

The four of them kept pace, moving swiftly through the tunnel as it made its way down, down, down into the ground. George became very aware of his surroundings after that, steering furiously away from any daydream that might take a hold of him, although it pained him to be where he was. 

Dark, cold stone, creaking wooden beams, long put-out lanterns. It wasn’t exactly a paradise. And all too familiar. But Dream was down here somewhere, so he had to be too. He’d not let himself be deterred from that objective, no matter how much more adamant he was about it than usual. There was nothing else keeping him from himself after all, nothing standing between him and his thoughts, so onwards he would trek. The freezing air still made him shiver, though. He shoved away the feeling of locked doors and small, dark spaces filling his memory. 

As if to interrupt his pondering, the group came to an impasse - a fork in the tunnels. 

Three possible routes, and four hunters to take them. They couldn’t use the compasses anymore. From this point forward, it was all going to be luck. 

_ Not luck,  _ George thought.  _ Skill _ . He bent down to inspect the ground, dragging his eyes meticulously across the stones and black soil that covered them. The wet outline of footsteps eventually came into view, and he traced them with his finger, feeling them murmur under his skin. Beside him, Ant took a long, dragged out breath in, smelling the sweet air of the underground rivers that ran around them. 

“He left tracks?” said Sapnap, breaking them both out of their trances. “There’s no way. He must be trying to throw us off.” 

Antfrost shook his head. “He never backtracked. The deepest tunnel is to the left, and that’s where the footprints go.” 

“Can you smell him?” Sapnap said, stupidly. 

“ _ No _ . His trail is undeniable though. Salt and leather. And listen,” Ant said, pausing in the silence. George, Bad, and Sap heard nothing but the occasional drip of water through a crack in the stone, but Ant’s ears twitched as though there was more, much more, that they were missing. “A breeze,” said Ant. “The other two tunnels are stagnant, they lead nowhere, or back outside. This one,” he pointed to the leftmost tunnel, “goes deeper. He went this way, for sure.” 

“Then he’s being reckless,” said Bad. Nobody made a single step forward. George remained still, close to the ground, the extra space above his head making him breathe easier. “I don’t like what that means for us.” 

“Maybe we should go back,” said Ant. George and Sapnap both turned to him, alarmed. 

“ _ What? _ ” they said, a little too loud. 

“We can’t go  _ back _ !” said Sapnap, for once forcing George to agree. “This hunt is literally in the bag!” 

“We don’t know that for sure.” 

“I’m not going back,” said George decidedly, shocked by his own conviction. 

He locked eyes with Ant, feeling an uncomfortably familiar feeling settle into his gut.  _ Not this, not again _ . He swayed nauseously, just once, before rising to his feet. He gripped his bow tightly, digging his nails into the wood. 

“We can’t all go. We know too little, it’s too risky -” 

“Ant’s right,” said Bad. 

“ _ Bad! _ ” said Sapnap. 

“I’m not saying we all go back! Maybe… maybe just one of us takes the tunnel?” 

“ _ I’m going! _ ” 

“ _ Not a chance! _ ” said George. He looked directly at Sapnap, both of their eyes and voices and tempers rising dangerously in volume, in temperature. A pebble fell out of the ceiling, stilling them slightly. 

“Oh no. No way. You’re not going to get what you want this time, Georgie,” 

“Sapnap -” tried Bad. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“ _ George _ -” tried Ant. 

“I’m going. Drop it.” 

“No! You really think after losing him once I’m going to let you do it again?”

“Both of you  _ stop it _ -” Bad, reached tentatively forward. Sapnap waved him away sharply and took a step towards George.

“And what, you can do better? Please.”

“Yeah, actually, because I don’t let my stupid anger get in my head!” 

“The  _ hell you don’t! _ ” 

“ _ Oh fuck off-! _ ” 

“ **_Language!_ ** ” Bad’s voice cut the argument in half like a knife. The walls of the cavern shook, sending droplets of water and rocks flying down on them. A deafening silence fell with it, leaving all unsaid words scattered dead in the dirt. Sapnap’s eyes were blazing, like the flame that danced in his light box every so often, melting all of George’s resolve away. He broke the gaze and turned to the tunnel.  _ Dream is down there _ . 

“Bad,” said George, remembering his carefully crafted composure. 

Bad thought very hard for only a moment, one that felt like an hour, during which the loudest sound any of them made was a breath or a blink. 

“Alright,” Bad began. “Alright, alright, here’s what we’re going to do. George -” Sapnap looked at him, appalled. “You’re going after him. The rest of us are going back.” 

“ _ But-! _ ” 

“This is not up for discussion.” 

Sapnap looked ready to explode, but the cave had different ideas. A single stream of water fell beside them both, causing them to look up and steady themselves, before the support beams above them became support beams  _ below _ . George shivered away his nervousness, forcing his shaking legs to still. The natural light was beginning to go. Eventually, he’d have to find a light source of his own. 

Without another word, Bad and Ant made their first tentative steps back out the way they came, awaiting Sapnap to follow them. George reached forward, hands shaking, to Sapnap’s chest, and with a tug, snapped off his necklace.  _ A lighter. Perfect _ . 

“You better live to bring that back,” said Sapnap, with malice in his voice. George stared back bitterly. 

“Either Dream dies, or we both do. Either way you get your money.”

  
  


The path was a precarious one. As the distance grew between him and the other hunters, George’s steps downward weighed heavier, dragging him down into the dark abyss, aching to grab him by the ankles and trip him until he fell to the bottom. The sounds of water flowing, dripping, pooling at his feet became louder as he treadded, careful not to slip. Sometimes there were ladders or stairs, built from rotting wood and unstable construction, and sometimes there were not. Only rocks, and an ever-darkening descent into what might very well be his end. Though it somehow didn’t feel that way.

A bat shrieked in the distance, startling him to reality as he stepped. He flicked the lighter, and a tall little flame lit the way for about a foot in front of him. The drop before him was not insignificant. He gazed down into it, pushing away the thoughts that intruded into his mind without welcome or a second of repose. They steeped in him, making his hands shake. The cold in his fingertips was familiar. 

The bat shrieked again, closer now. He took an arrow from his sling and held it by the feathered ends, dangling over the abyss. He hoped dearly that the sound would not give him away, and dropped it. 

A mere half second passed before he heard it - a small assurance of what awaited him below. He steadied himself and jumped after it, wincing as his legs absorbed the shock of his fall. He picked up his arrow and flicked the lighter again. The cavern had opened up, if only slightly. It might have been a perfect place to take a short rest, if only the sound of shuffling footsteps down the way hadn’t made him tense.  _ Dream _ , he thought, as a whisper of a breeze blew past his ears and the hair standing up on his neck. He adjusted his goggles on his head, flinching at the chilled steel of the rims, and broke into a jog towards the sound. 

As his lighter went out, the darkness pressed on him, clinging to him like a film, holding him under like bitter water. He waved a hand in front of his face and saw nothing, reaching desperately out in vain to tame this oppressive sea that surrounded him. His feet scuffed the ground, the sound echoing through the walls. Another hurried set of footsteps greeted him distantly in return. 

His body shook, and despite himself, he called out, “hello?” 

Another step, then a much heavier  _ thump _ , as that of someone dropping from somewhere. Or falling. 

George’s mind raced. His fear was nearly overpowered again by the chase, the back-and-forth that he so loved. But it was different now. It was a much more fearful, much clumsier call and response now. Dream couldn’t see him, and he couldn’t see Dream. He couldn’t see anything. 

His jog turned into a sprint, striking his lighter every now and again to make sure he didn’t run into a wall. He abandoned hope of being quiet when he heard Dream’s own footsteps rise in pace the same as his. He followed them, turning corners and walking into open spaces, closed off spaces, throwing himself from ledges without checking if he could, reaching every second for his bow, waiting for the footsteps to get closer. 

They disappeared, then reappeared, then disappeared again, weaving between rock formations George couldn't’ see. He followed - clumsily, and without stopping to wonder how he’d get back out if he managed to get out at all. He followed. His feet grew tired. His legs began to burn, but he followed. He kept perfect pace with Dream, trusting entirely that he’d reach him, that he  _ knew _ it was George who was on his tail. 

Until Dream faltered.

* * *

Dream wanted to die. Everything around him made his body ache. It was the darkness. It was always the darkness. It was the way he couldn’t tell what was in front of him except by the sound, and the sound mingled so awfully with the creak of the support beams, and the unsteady rocking of the stones pressed against each other, the only thing between him and a cave-in. He ran so messily he couldn’t even consider it running. His feet slipped on the wet floor, he tripped over them, tripped over the smallest pebbles and mounds of dark soil or sand - he wasn’t sure which. His hands scrambled for a hold on something, anything, and so often came up blank that when he came into contact with a hard, sturdy wall, he nearly screamed for fear it was a person instead. His lungs betrayed him. Every breath rang through the winding tunnels like badly broken church bells, like the screams of the damned mixing in with the natural breeze of the cavern.

He’d led someone down here with him. He had to lose them. He had to convince them there was no chance they’d catch up, that he they to turn back, get out,  _ get out _ . But it was no use. One of the hunters followed frantically after him, chasing the sound of his footsteps in the puddles and soaked-through wood. He thought for a moment that perhaps he’d evaded them - at the very moment that a single oddly shaped rock caught his foot, and sent him flying forward onto the ground. He caught himself before his entire face could break against a rock, but the fear rose in him like well water, starting at his feet as he sped to get back on them, and reaching his eyes as the tears began to sting. 

The hunter sounded closer, of course  _ they  _ hadn’t tripped. Dream couldn’t let this happen. He couldn’t let them catch up. He turned a corner, then turned another, hoping that the hunter would lose the trail in the labyrinth of despair they found themselves in, but when he turned once more and ran face-first into another person, whatever faith he had in his body smashed like a derailed train. 

“Ow!” said the hunter. No.  _ No, no, no _ . 

“George?” 

“ _ Dream?? _ ” 

The sound of metal dragging on metal filled the cavern as they both drew weapons from their sheaths. Dream hoped George couldn’t hear the slight quiver of the blade as his hands fought helplessly to still against the handle. 

A flash grazed the cavern, filling the room with a warm light. Dream looked to George’s right hand, where he held a lighter and a dancing flame. In his right was a shortsword, much like Dream’s. They stared at each other both searching for something far too intangible for the other to decipher. Dream scoured George’s eyes. They were familiar, not just because he’d come to recognize the way that a certain kind of light could make one iris change color. There was something in them that reminded Dream painfully of claustrophobia. 

Needlessly, above them a stone loosened and fell, making an insignificant splash in the puddle it landed it, but the sound unlocked something awful in him that made him whisper, panicked and out loud, “ _ No, no, no, no, no _ .” 

“What?” said George. His voice wavered, just like Dream’s. 

“W-What are you doing here?” said Dream. 

“ _ Following you _ !” said George, incredulous. Dream beat himself mentally for letting a single stupid tear fall from his eye. He thanked every God he could list that George couldn’t see through his mask. He was breathing like he’d just run twenty miles. They both were. 

“George, you have to get out of here-” 

“What?” 

“It’s not safe, you have to leave!” 

“Are you mental?!  _ Ah _ !” he shouted as another rock plummeted from the ceiling. It was higher than they could see. Dream refused to look up. His eyes locked with George’s, who was looking around frantically, darting all too quickly from one thing to another.  _ What’s wrong with him? _ he thought, as if he had any right to ask, with the state he was in himself. 

This was too much. This was all too much. Alone, he could have made it. Sitting still he might have made it, but now George was here with him, and it was all far, far too much. 

His knees buckled, and he launched a hand to claw at the wall beside him, holding himself up by a thread. 

“ _ Please, please, please, _ ” he muttered “ _ Please, leave _ .” 

“Dream?  _ Dream!  _ What’s wrong with you?” 

George’s voice was growing distorted, like he was hearing it from another room, through a wall, through a wad of cotton. His ribcage closed around his lungs and he gasped desperately just to be able to breathe. His mask. He had to take off his mask. But George was there.  _ Right _ there. He pressed his back to the wall and sank down until he was bent over on the floor like a bug. He sank his fingernails into his leg, digging past the fabric and into the skin.  _ Breathe _ , he thought, painfully.  _ Please, breathe _ . 

George dropped to his knees beside him, jamming the lighter between two odd rocks in the wall so that it stayed lit. The  _ crack _ made Dream shake, throwing his hands around his head to cover his ears and keep muttering incoherently. 

“ _ No no no no no. _ ” 

“ _ Dream _ , _ look at me,”  _

Dream buried his face in his knees. He refused. He had to breathe. 

“ _ Dream, please, look at me _ .” 

A memory flashed into his head, and he shook it away, hoping his mask would catch the tears before they fell to the floor. He looked up. He looked at George. It was just George.

“ _ Good, look at me. Look at my face, Dream. What do you see? _ ” 

Dream looked. Through the ocean in his eyes, he couldn’t see all that much, so he blinked it away. 

“ _ Uh. Um, y-you. _ ” he said, barely able to get a word out. Everything was too loud. 

“ _ Okay, good. What about me? _ ” 

“ _ Yuh-your hair, _ ” he said, tentatively. “ _ Your hair. _ ” 

“Good,” said George. His voice was clearer.  _ Is he shaking too? _ “Go on.” 

“ _ And… _ ” he swallowed thickly. “And your eyes. One’s blue, and the other one’s b-brown _.” _

“Good- wait, really?” 

“Huh?” 

“They’re different colors?” 

Dream stared silently for a moment. Despite himself, despite literally everything, he laughed. Athena help him, he laughed.  _ How does this idiot not know his own eye color? _

“George,” he said, still shaking, and vehemently ignoring it, along with the sting of salt in his cheeks. He vaguely noticed the glowing outline of their weapons lying abandoned beside them. “What are you doing?” 

“I- I don’t…” George started, before he was interrupted by the shake of the walls. Above him, a boulder slipped from its casing and cascaded down towards them. Thoughtlessly, Dream grabbed George’s arm and pulled, holding him close, the feeling all too familiar. The rock crashed down before them, causing a deafening sound to echo through the cavern. George looked back to where he would have become a human pancake, as horrified as that thought made Dream. 

“ _ Jesus. _ ” 

Now that George was in his hands, he could feel for sure that he was shaking. There was no chance it was only him. 

“What’s the matter?” he asked in earnest, before realizing he probably shouldn’t have. 

“What? Nothing,” said George, far too quickly. They had been pulling apart steadily as soon as the rock had hit the ground, but as a distant rumble shook the cavern once more, George leapt back onto him. “ _ Nothing.” Hah. Sure. _

Distantly, Dream knew exactly what was happening around them. He hated it as much as his body would let him. But he was safe. Probably. At least he would be. Most likely. The odds were 50/50, at this juncture. As rocks of varying shapes and sizes and  _ decibels _ landed on the ground and into the streams around them, sounding like thunder and distorted screaming, George clung to Dream’s shirt like it would save him if a rock fell on his head. And Dream clung right back, wishing he were anywhere else but here, and also wondering if George would be in his arms like this if he was. 

When the screams - the  _ avalanche _ \- stopped substantially enough that there was hardly any danger left, George looked distantly off into the darkness, peeling himself away from Dream reluctantly. 

“There goes our exit - m- _ my _ exit,” he said. His accent was funny. Dream laughed, with only a little bit of humor, and leaned his head back, pressing it flush against the wall. The drip of the water on his forehead calmed him, slightly. 

“We’ll be fine,” he rasped, through the strain in his voice. His eyes drooped, the bags beneath them suddenly feeling very heavy. He breathed in deep, feeling the weight of his lungs, bruised from the tightness that had not quite yet left his chest. 

“You’re mad,” said George. 

“Can I ask you something?” said Dream, not waiting for George to really ponder his own statement. “How come you haven’t killed me yet?” 

George looked at him incredulously, clearly not having expected Dream to simply ask. 

“I don’t… I don’t…” 

“Don't know? Come on now.”

“Don’t make me change my mind,” George said flatly. An empty threat. 

“Come onnn, Georgie. Just tell me!” 

“Don’t call me that when we’re literally about to die.” George thought about it for a minute. “Actually, just don’t call me that.” 

“Why not? Don’t like it, Georgie?”

George grumbled and said nothing more. Dream tried very hard not to be amused, which drove his attention delightfully away from trying not to be horrified that he was completely and utterly trapped underground.  _ Again _ . But at least this time he hadn’t been left alone. At least this time nobody got hurt.

“Christ.  _ Fuck. Christ,  _ we’re actually stuck,” George said, panic rising in his voice. Dream tried reaching for his arm again, but he pulled away, rising to his feet, and beginning to pace. Dream watched him, considering whether to be worried or amused, and deciding on a healthy mix of both. Some part of him wanted to miss the feeling of George hugging him. The entire rest of him was very concerned that the feeling existed at all.

“George, relax,” he said, deciding to interject when George started tripping on pebbles. “We’re going to be fine, we just have to think.”

“W-We?  _ We? Are you kidding? _ None of this ‘ _ we _ ’ business. If anybody is getting out of here, it’s  _ me _ . And even that’s not happening, so…” 

“So?”

“So  _ shut up _ , my Gods you’re annoying.” 

Dream laughed at that. Somehow, he’d forgotten where he was.

“You’re overreacting George, just listen. We can get out of here if we work together.” 

“Oh, now you really  _ must _ be kidding,” said George, appalled that Dream could have the mere audacity to suggest it. George came to a rigid stop in front of, staring down to meet his eyes - the only time he really could, considering their rather hilarious height difference. “I. Am not working. With a murderer.”

“You were just  _ cuddling _ with a murderer, sweetheart.”

“Oh, wow, I hate you. I really hate you.” 

“Nahh,” Dream said, finally steady enough in his legs to stand. He rose to match George’s height, and then passed him, finally looking down again. “You wouldn’t keep coming back for me if you hated me.” 

“I keep coming back for you because it’s  _ literally my job _ \- you know what nevermind.” 

Separately, they began to grab their weapons from off the floor and explore their surroundings, now that the light wasn’t taking up the space in George’s hand. It was still dim, and dark and dingy and horrible, but at least he could see. At least the darkness wasn’t so… pressing. And hey, it wasn’t like he was a convicted murderer in a room with one of the law-enforced bounty hunters after his head or anything. A hostility made its way back into the air. 

He looked to said hunter, who was reaching for his lighter, hands still shaking, but for what Dream still wasn’t sure.  _ Maybe he just doesn’t like the dark _ , Dream thought.  _ I know the feeling _ . 

“What are you staring at, asshole?” 

“Nothing,” said Dream. “Look for a breeze. That’ll give us a way out.” 

“Don’t tell me what to do.” 

“Fine, princess, stay  _ locked _ down here then.” 

George flinched. His goggles slipped a little down onto his forehead, but he ignored them. His eyes were locked onto the ground, but he wasn’t really looking at anything.  _ Crap, what did I say? _

“George?” 

“Breeze,” said George, deadpan. Dream was distinctly not amused anymore. “I’ll look for a breeze.” 

“George,” Dream repeated in vain. George was already wandering off with the lighter, leaving Dream in a trail of very unanswered questions and with a blanket of darkness settling over him again. He didn’t like it, not one bit, but at least he knew that in the massive expanse of the cavern they stood in, all he had to do was look for a matchlight to find him again.  _ I’m not alone. I’m not alone here _ .


	6. Of Thieves and Tales

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dream and George continue to be stuck in a collapsed cave together. What will they discuss to pass the time?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay wow. Lot of content in this chapter. 
> 
> Thank you always and again to Angel for proofing and being awesome. We hope you enjoy this one, it was a lot of fun to write

George dragged his feet through the pool of sick negligence and still-churning dust, pressing his finger into the grooves of the lighter’s flint until the lines were etched into his skin. He hated this. Everything about it. He’d run out of light fuel in a few hours, and he was sure he’d still be stuck in this stupid bloody cave by then. Stuck - _locked away,_ between immovable rock and insufferable company.

He raked through every detail of the story until it was sore and raw and useless. It didn’t matter how he did the math, did it? Nothing quite added up. 

_But whatever_ , he thought. _It doesn’t matter._

His crossbow rested heavily in its holster, the judgement he’d promised to it before he entered the cavern still yet to be made. He placed his hand on it, feeling the sleek bend of the wood and letting it take some small part of his mind to a better place. Maybe back to a campfire, laughing at Sapnap’s bad jokes. It only worked for a moment before he was back in the dark again. 

_Flick,_ went the lighter. _Flick_ . _Flick._

He counted the seconds that passed by, guided by the drip of the water that surrounded him, each drop coming from a different place, echoing through from the darkness. _One, two, three minutes,_ he counted. _Four, five_. It was excruciating. 

The flint began to burn through the grooves in his thumb, igniting his fingerprint, but still he pressed, eager to keep its light with him. From somewhere, off in the darkness, he heard the scuff of Dream’s footsteps, slipping on a rock or taking a rough step, and took a lowly comfort in the fact that at least he could hear his every move. 

Footsteps approached him from somewhere behind, so he whipped around to face them, nearly putting his light out. An ugly mask greeted him, though with an unfamiliar crack down its center, nearly splitting it in half. By the way it spread across the surface like a delicate spider’s web, George would have guessed the mask was porcelain. An awfully poetic thing for such an awful person to have. 

“... you broke it,” he said. He’d run out of time to think of anything else. 

“Thanks, genius,” said Dream. “You mind putting that down? I’m not gonna try to stab you or anything.” 

George took all the time in the world lowering his crossbow back into his belt. He never buckled it back in, but let it sit, waiting to be used, shaking with anticipation. The aggression in the air was familiar, a common sight between them, but for every wrong reason, it felt newly agonizing. 

“What do you want?” George asked shortly.

“I couldn’t find anything.”

A contemplative pause. 

_I hate this._

“Neither did I.”

He watched Dream’s hand twitch against itself, his fingernails jabbing sharply into his palm. George winced on his behalf. _It must be a tick of his_ , he thought. Dream’s nails were longer than his. _Painful_. 

“Guess we’re stuck,” said Dream. 

“Guess so.” 

He reached up, clasping the bottom edge of his mask between his fingers, and for a moment George faltered, foolishly believing he was about to see something he shouldn’t, only to watch Dream adjust the thing lightly and let his hand fall again. He turned his attention to a rock beneath his feet. _Don’t be ridiculous,_ he thought. _Don't be absurd._ He studied the ground intensely. Pyrite or calcite, he wasn’t sure through the darkness.

“This must be hilarious to you.” 

George looked up from the glittering ground. _He’s baiting me_ , he thought. _Don’t answer_. 

“What d’you mean?” 

Dream took a glance behind him with the help of George’s matchlight, and backed up to sit himself down on a boulder that used to be part of the ceiling with a tired sigh. 

“Well, we’re trapped. You’re supposed to kill me for money. And I don’t like tight spaces. Sounds like the setup to a bad joke, don’t you think?” 

“You’re unbearable,” said George. 

“Am I?” Dream cocked his head. It was a rhetorical question. George’s heart dodged a beat, and bile rose up in his throat from the stutter. In a brilliant flash of foresight, George thought he would rather have been crushed by the boulder than spend the next long, long hours of his possibly short life speaking to Dream. 

“Yes.” 

Dream kicked a stone absently into a puddle. The splash made George’s skin itch. 

“Do you really hate me so much?” Dream asked, sounding almost too genuine for George to want to shoot him in the face right then and there. 

Almost. 

“Of course I do. What kind of a stupid question -” 

“Why?” 

An incredulousness beyond belief settled on George’s head, resting neatly between his goggles. He wanted to land a solid punch on that stupid mask and smash it. He bet the shards of porcelain would cut the bastard’s face up well and good. The sheer nerve of him. The rumble of residual rocks sliding down the cave walls seemed in-time with George’s incredibly vivid indignation. 

It was too much, he knew. Too much irritation, too much livid, rocky rage building in his heart for Dream to have only asked him a one worded question.

“Are you joking? Or are you an idiot?” His thumb squeezed down on the flint all too hard. He’d almost slipped, almost caused the light to go out. “Oh, I dunno Dream, maybe it’s because you’re _loud_ , or because you’re _obnoxious_ , or because you’re somehow _always out of our reach_.” George breathed in - a contemplative pause before the words that he wouldn’t procure an ounce of effort to control. The air was damp, and thick with tension, and it tasted like a bitter memory or two.

“Maybe it’s because you always find a way to make an awful situation into a stupid _joke_ , maybe it’s the way that everyone seems to know you’re a horrible person except for _you!_ ” 

The cavern echoed with the last discordant notes of it. Dream’s mask gazed back at George, unmoving and irritatingly stoic. The silence that followed was awfully loud. 

“Wow,” he said, simply. It grated on George like a hot knife on granite. “Got it. I thought you’d say something like, ‘you’re taller than me,’ but…” 

“Ugh. Just shut up,” said George, then despite himself, added, “please.” 

For a moment, Dream did, and George was faced with the consequence of having his request fulfilled, the deafening sounds of the water and constantly churning earth, as different as the sun from the moon and as George’s apathy from the warmth in his veins, but both present, and both driving him mad. He dragged his fingers down across his eyelids until he saw patterns and shapes behind them. 

“Can I ask you something?” said Dream

“I believe you just did,” George said, tiredly. All the anger in his body had evaporated, the heat apparently too much, replaced easily by weary exhaustion. It was a temporary cure for a seemingly permanent problem.

“Why haven’t you killed me yet?”

The bags under George’s eyes weighed terribly heavy as he looked every which way to avoid Dream’s gaze. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. This wasn’t meant to be at all.

“You had the opportunity. I was…” Dream paused. George remembered perfectly what he _was_ , but he didn’t want to. Dream seemed to dismiss the thought as soon as George did. “You could have, if you wanted to. But you didn’t. Why?” 

“I don’t know,” George said finally, defeated, at best. 

“You don’t know?” Dream said, turning the answer every which way, examining it like a shiny object he’s found on the floor, rusted over though it was. “I think you do.”

“Well then please do enlighten me, oh cleverest of arseholes.” 

“No way,” Dream huffed. “Keep self-reflection to your own time, please.” 

George seated himself on a boulder a good and healthy distance away, just far enough that he could still see his light on the mask, and began to rummage through his pack for something flammable. He rolled his eyes and wondered where he’d be if he were capable of making good choices. 

“Oh of course, I’m so sorry, your grace, for thinking I’m worthy of your insights,’ he said.

“No need to get snippy,” said Dream, making himself comfortable on his own bloody rock. He fiddled with the button on his shirt, and George averted his eyes as quickly as his body would let him - the very second the gesture registered. He could almost feel the sting of whiplash as the alarmingly rapid tonal shift hit him in the face. His mind stuttered for what he’d say next, grabbing for words like a rat reaches for bread. 

“Oh and while you’re busy knowing everything about me, why don’t you go ahead and quit it with the casual conversations? It’s not fitting for a psychopath.” He’d spoken far too quickly.

“Psychopath? Is that what you think I am?”

“Are you not?”

Dream paused, looking towards the only dry patch of stone on the ground between them, and then back down to his shirt, feeling the fabric between his fingers. George followed his train of thought blindly - he figured it would probably catch fire fairly quickly, and burn for at least a few miserable minutes, but Zeus would strike him dead before he asked Dream to take his shirt off.

“I wouldn’t say that,” said Dream. “And I wouldn’t exaggerate either, I don’t know _everything_ about you.”

George rolled his eyes, ensuring that Dream noticed. “Oh, how comforting.” 

“You know, for someone who thinks they’re shacked up with a murderer, you sure are persistent in insulting me.” 

“If you wanted to kill me, you would have, I’m sure. I’m _fine_ . And you deserve it, anyways.” George clung to the word “thinks” like it was a rope and he was dangling over a cliff. _I don’t think. I know. He’s just trying to mess with me_. 

“Confident, are we?”

George met his eyes. Or wherever his eyes were supposed to be. He hated that mask more than anything. The cracked porcelain taunted him. He thought maybe at some point it would split down the middle. 

“Very.” 

“You never know, Georgie. Maybe I’m more unpredictable than you think.” He punctuated this by unbuttoning his shirt from the top down. George looked aggressively away. _Jesus._

“I-I know well and good how unpredictable you are. It’s the most annoying bloody thing about you. And _stop calling me that_.” 

“Really? Are _totally_ you sure it’s not just that I’m taller than you?” 

He threw the balled-up wad of green linen onto the ground and waited patiently for George to throw in the matchlight. The lighter nearly fell out of George’s hands. _I’d set_ **_you_ ** _on fire, if I had the will in me_ , he thought. 

“Shut up. We would have caught you far earlier if you weren’t so difficult to read.” 

“You really think that, don’t you.” It wasn’t a question, but George answered anyway.

“Of course. Everything about you is unpredictable, it’s… chaotic. How else is it that you always get away? Who thinks like that?”

George pictured himself batting blades with Dream atop a moving carriage. Disappointingly, it was a rather fond memory. He liked the sound the metal made when the swords met in the middle. He hadn’t been able to predict a single one of Dream’s movements, and it had driven him mad the entire week afterwards, when they’d gone and lost him again. 

“Oh, come on now. Coming from you? That’s rich.”

George pointedly held the match to the linen on the ground, waiting an irritating amount of time for it to catch before stepping away. As the light of the flame rose, he made sure to stare directly into Dream, through the messy smile to whatever was underneath. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Dream looked back, straight at him. George had meant to be strong. He really had. But the light dancing on the porcelain hurt his eyes too much not to look away. Dream’s gaze never wavered once. 

“Always on the side of the law, yet never a lawman. What do you think that says about you, Georgie?”

A disturbing silence fell on them both. George dragged his thumb slowly across the ridges of the lighter flint again. It hurt. He’d be bleeding soon if he didn’t find a new habit to keep him company, but if it distracted him from what sat across the fire George would press his thumb onto the sharpest blade. He was sure there was a knife in his bag, somewhere. 

Dream reached back to adjust the clasp that rested below his ponytail. The _clink_ echoed lightly on the rocks, so that George tensed up at the prospect alone. It felt wrong, so wrong. _Keep it on. Please keep it on._

“That crossbow of yours is old,” Dream said, removing his hand. A kindness, after rendering George uncomfortably speechless, something he hardly ever was. A drop of water fell on George’s head, so he scooted closer to the fire to get away from the stream. Around them, the water tried to find a new path to the basin on the surface. George wondered briefly if they could follow it to freedom, but he dismissed the thought as soon as it came to him. _Don’t be an idiot_. 

“It was my father’s,” he said. “He had a thing for collecting crossbows.” He bit the inside of his cheek and tasted iron. The cold gathering at the tips of his fingers made him reach up, breathing out warm air into rigid palms. He recalled the sliver of light pouring onto him from underneath the door. He recalled the muffled sound of a crossbow firing. The sound of the arrow landing in the wall with a violent _thunk_. 

“Yeah? Was he a hunter, like you?” 

“No,” George said shortly. _No_. “Just a paranoid fool.” 

Dream’s head tilted. He seemed to debate whether or not to push, and George found himself praying that he wouldn’t, but hoping that he would. _What is wrong with me_? 

“Paranoid?” 

George considered, then considered again, and just once more for good measure, feeling the gears in his head turning arduously at the task. He should have kept silent, but the darkness around him pressed into his back hard enough that the pressure made him chatty. Irritable. _Stop talking, stop talking._

“He thought everyone was out to get him,” he said absently. George hung his head and stared into the fire. He wanted to lean in close to it. Feel the heat on his face. “But he was just a lonely coward.”

“Sounds like you don’t think very highly of him.” 

“Yeah, well…” He paused, and elaborated no further. 

Dream fell silent. The fire was close to eating away at what was left of the linen, so George began to rummage through his bag again for anything more he could throw at it. The last thing he wanted now was to be in the dark. _I shouldn’t have said that._

A journal caught his eye. He’d done a poor job of logging every day in it - keeping time by the towns and people he came across instead. There was hardly anything written in it other than the occasional hour of the day, and copies of rune sets that Ant had asked him to write down for later that they didn’t quite need anymore, so he chucked it lightly into the fire. The pages went up immediately, and the words etched into the spine curled and bent to illegibility. _I shouldn’t have said any of that_. 

His hands reached out close to the flame, fingers aching for the relief of being mildly unfrozen. Not close enough to burn. Not close enough to even warm. But close enough to thaw. _I shouldn’t have said anything_.

“You’re really something,” said Dream, unprompted. He sounded disgustingly like he meant it. George did nothing to hide his scowl. 

“Why’s that?” 

A pause, which he hated.

“I don’t know. Every time I try to figure you out, you do… you _say_ something unexpected.” He smiled, George could see it past the edges of the mask. Hear it in his voice. “Something… _chaotic_ , even.” 

“Oh, shut up,” he said. He felt the endearing tone of his own words used against him tensing in his throat. _I’m not like you._ “You don’t know anything about me.” 

“You might not like it, but it’s very hard to know nothing about you. You make it very, very hard.” 

George pondered the thought. His mind landed on a familiar face, familiar voice. _“You know you can tell me, right?”_ His body curled against the crawling edge making its way up his spine like the refined, sharpened tip of a sword. He’d never meant to be unreadable - never meant to push them all away - but… was it really so easy to know him? Even for a total stranger?

“That’s a bit unfair, don’t you think?” he said. Dream looked up at him from the fire again. George wished he’d stop doing that.

“What is?” 

“That you think you know so much about me, and all I know about you is what other people have told me.” 

Dream uttered a single, humorless laugh. 

“Good on you for knowing the difference, but there’s not much to tell.” 

“I don’t believe that for a second.” 

_Why am I pushing? What am I saying?_

He refused to keep playing this game. The rules were stupid, and he was losing. He was beginning to feel like it was the kind of game neither of them would win. 

“Anything you wanted to know about me wouldn’t even matter a little bit, George.” His tone dropped to a mutter. “You’ve got the important stuff.” 

George found and drew a length of rope from his bag, and began to feed it inch by inch into the fire. Beneath it, the journal split in half, falling into itself and charred black by the heat. 

“Ok. So let me ask you a question then.” 

Dream hesitated - a new experience - before conceding with a “sure, go for it.” 

“Why haven’t _you_ killed _me_?”

* * *

A few minutes into the noise, Bad had bitten all his fingernails completely short. The ground beneath his feet was far too unstable - he’d fall over from the sheer dread welling in his chest - so he sat tentatively on the edge of the reservoir basin, his feet dangling a little ways above the ground. From this vantage point he could clearly see Ant and Sapnap, nestled neatly against a weak little tree, solemnly placing stones to create a place for the fire. They glanced at him occasionally, worried looks on their faces and the same fear in their hearts - Bad was certain. 

Another rumble graced the cliffside and the thought of stones crashing down on each other filled Bad’s consciousness before he let out a deep sigh and gripped his arms tightly. He shivered as a breath of wind rushed past his face. The sting it left in his cheeks reminded him that the sun was finally setting, and the heat of the desert settling into a tame, frigid evening. 

A warm light in the distance let him know that the fire was lit. He longed to be next to it, but another quiet rumble kept him a distance from the ground. He was growing quite sick of this insecurity. 

“First Sapnap, and now you,” he muttered into the air, sending his message deep down underground, as if the earth could take his words sediment layer by sediment layer and deliver them to George for him - if George was alive to hear them. 

Another gust of wind pushed him deeper into his cloak. He wasn’t dressed for the evening weather. He hardly ever was. The fire looked inviting from where he sat. Perhaps the steam rising up through the vents all day was making the early night feel colder than it really was. Perhaps it was the closeness to a body of water that made him shiver. 

He placed one foot gingerly down onto a paving stone and waited for the earth to still before following with the other. Everything inside him hurt. 

He’d be taking a long, _long_ vacation after this hunt was over, if his poor heart lived to tell the tale. A vacation long enough where his heart would _more_ than forget the ache of fearing he had lost something he couldn’t replace. 

_“George, you’re going after him,”_ his own voice ricocheted in his head. He hated the sound it made. _“The rest of us are going back.”_

Whether or not he’d made the right choice was in the hands of the Gods now, petulant though they were. They had him tossing about on the sea of fate in a rowboat, and every time the sound of an avalanche rose up from the earth, all Bad heard was the crack of thunder and a flash of guilty light. 

“Bad!” Ant called to him from beside the fire. His tail was curled protectively around Bad’s things. “Come on! You’re gonna freeze!” 

“Coming!” 

A stone fell again. Regret saturated his blood. 

“Coming…” he said again, and walked the stone path to the two people who were still there with him. 

The night fell steadily down on them as they gathered closer and closer to the warm sterility of the fire, feeling it bend and break the stinging chill of the night air. Bad wished he could fall asleep. 

“I’m sure he’s fine,” said Sapnap softly, assuring himself more than anything. Bad wanted to reprimand him, wanted to say something harsh and tell him to can-it, before their spirits all deteriorated into nothing, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. 

“Yeah,” said Ant. “We all know George. He’ll be ok. He always finds a way out of tough spots.” 

Bad held his breath, willing the words to stay in, and inevitably failed. 

“I shouldn’t have told him to go,” he said quietly. 

“No. Bad, no. Absolutely not. You can’t blame yourself for this.” 

“Of course I can!” Insensibility was finding its way into him, pitching his words, making them messy. He wanted to go back, to do it over again. He’d do a million things differently. “If I had just been sensible - If I had _listened_ to you, Ant. We should have _all_ gone back. What was I _thinking_ sending him down there by himself- !” 

“Bad!” said Ant. A paw came to rest on Bad’s shoulder as hot tears filled his eyes. The salt of them cut his cheeks open from the rawness of his sunburn and the cold. “There was no way you could have known this would happen, ok?” Ant paused, considering. “If I’m honest… I think it was good of you to trust George to do this on his own.” 

“How can you say that?” 

“Ant’s right,” said Sapnap, pulling and twisting his fingers to distract himself with the noise they made. _Crack. Pop. Crack_. “I… I shouldn’t have…” He sighed. Bad waited for him. “It was meant to be George.” 

“ _What?_ ” 

“N-not the avalanche! That was never supposed to happen. I mean, going after Dream.” He looked ashamed. “I don’t think I could have done it.” 

“That’s not true, Sapnap. You’ve been after him more than any of us! The last thing you even said to George was how -” Bad stopped himself in his tracks. It was the wrong thing so say. 

Sapnap hung his head low, lower than Bad had seen it in a long time. 

“I know.”

The same regret was filling all of them, Bad realized. It was choking them so much they’d forgotten how to talk to each other. But Sapnap was right, no matter how much he hated to think it, hated that he couldn’t change it. It was only ever going to be George. 

A long, tense silence passed through them. Ant’s paw never left Bad’s shoulder. 

“He’ll be here,” said Ant, finally. The confidence in his voice might have been fabricated, or it might not have been, but it was enough for Bad to sit and stare up at the sky, watching small glowing specs appear on it. _He’ll be here_ , he thought. _He’ll be fine_. 

* * *

“What?” Dream asked, having heard perfectly what George had said. 

He felt the weight of his mask on his face, and adjusted the clasp again. George was gazing at him expectantly, like he’d cracked a code or beat the unbeatable game. His blue eye flickered between colors as the fire swayed this way and that, changing angles and making fun of Dream for staring.

The space around them was vast, a wide cavern that swallowed up the light like a cobra, and yet he felt like the walls were closed in on him, starting only where the light ended. 

He looked George up and down, mulling over the prose and poetry he could recite to him to make him understand. No words were good enough, he realized. No words but the truest ones. _What do you say to a question you don’t know the answer to?_ he thought tiredly. 

“I suppose I don’t want to,” he said, honestly. Slowly. Processing each syllable at the same time as George. He wondered what it must be like to talk to someone whose face you can’t see, and suddenly became bothered on George’s behalf. 

He wanted to reach for his cards and flip through them, feel the edges on his fingertips and perhaps read in them a shred of hope that this would end soon. Whatever this was. But he’d left the things behind, damn him. Now he had nothing to distract himself with. 

“...Really?” said George. Dream ached. _Why do I want to tell you?_ he thought. _Why do I want you to know?_

“Really.”

“Well that’s…” 

“Nice?” Dream supplied, trying to find the confidence he had been flaunting so easily before - land on his feet after falling spectacularly on his face. George scoffed incredulously, and Dream receded into himself again. 

“Frustrating.” 

“Why?” 

George took a piercing look in between the drawn-on eyes of Dream’s mask. Dream reached towards the clasp absently again, not noticing until the leather strap was nearly unbuckled that he had fully intended on removing it. He dragged his hand back down to rest in his lap defiantly, all the while his nails clawed into the fabric of his undershirt. An irritated spark passed between George’s eyes - those eyes that flipped through emotions at rapid infinitum. How did George not know how readable he was? Everything was on display, right there for Dream to look at. And there was still so much for him to understand. **Stop it** , his eyes said. Dream’s hand twitched on his lap. 

“Your charge is for murder,” said George, simply. “Thousands of crown’s worth of murder, actually. Twenty seven thousand crowns.” Dream held the reminder in his palms and squeezed it, an awful wriggling thing.

George forced him to keep looking at the frustration building in him. _The things you must think of me…_

“You can kill them - all of them - and not me?” 

Dream wanted the earth to swallow him. 

“I…” 

“Tell me the truth.” 

“That… that _is_ the truth.” 

Dream had intended to say a great myriad of things, yet found a stunning lack of words making their way past the blockage in his throat. He wished dreadfully he were somewhere, anywhere else. His breath grew hot with the weight of all he was unable to say. He hated this cave dust that made him want to cough when he inhaled to take another long, pointless sigh. He hated the way the air was dry and the ground was damp, and the way there was no way to escape the droplets of water that fell on their own merry way upon Dream’s head. He hated looking at the spiderwebbed crack down the porcelain over his face, straight through the middle, snaking through the glazed ceramic like the golden thread of fate, poking him aggressively between the eyes. He hated the restraint it took him not to grab the thing on both sides and _pull_ , until it was two halves of a single simple, pointless object. 

“I don’t believe you,” said George. Dream allowed himself a dry laugh. 

“Ok, smart boy,” he said, through the hoarseness in his throat and rolling tides in his mouth. “You’ve got me.” 

“Have I?” said George. “Or is this just another one of your tricks?” 

“No, no, really,” said Dream, pressing his hand to the brick wall of George’s character, pleading with his eyes to be let in, hoping it was enough. “I mean it this time.” 

George seemed to hesitate. Dream didn’t blame him. Their game was hung up by a thread. A thin, delicate thread made of gold - soft and breakable, and yet oh so pretty. 

It glinted into Dream’s eyes - his real eyes, and he disregarded the black abyss below.

He reached for his mask, feeling his hand span from one edge to the other, fingertip to fingertip. Feeling the cool, smooth gloss of the clear glaze sink into his palm, and with a snap, pulled it away from his face. He let it hover as he felt George hold his breath from across the fire. 

“...Well go on then. Tell me.” 

The mask fell away, and George looked upon him as he was, nothing in his beautiful eyes but the discovery of a man, hollow and different, and more lost than any other. Dream squirmed under the scrutiny of them. He approached the thread with a pair of scissors in his dense, calloused hands, and made one single, graceless _cut_. 

“... Ok.” 

  
  


_A town sits far to the east of the desert, where there’s less sun and a few trees. The locals call it Weaver. It’s fairly big, as desert towns go, but nothing special, really. It’s completely unremarkable, except for its one notable feature._

_There’s a grove by it, a single patch of greenery and vegetation and beauty. It doesn’t grow by nature - there’s no water source anywhere near it - but by magic. It gives the town resources, protection, food and fresh rainwater. It’s the only place where it rains, actually, and people say that they can feel their spirits calling to them when they stand in it. The trees seem taller than life there. Every blade of grass seems to sing with the wind. There’s_ wind _._

_That grove is the reason a lot of people who practice magic go to Weaver to apprentice. A few powerful witches study there every few years and come out knowing more about magic than anybody could ever learn without experiencing it in nature. You learn a way of seeing there that’s hard to unlearn. It’s complicated, and to be honest, a little overblown. Anyway…_

“… Weaver is the orphanage town… _They_ issued your bounty.”

“Yeah, George. That’s the one.” 

_The orphanage doesn’t exist anymore. Obviously. There’s no need for it. And good riddance, if you ask me._

_There was hardly a place in Weaver for any of those kids, except for that disgusting rat’s nest of a place. Nobody wanted or cared about them. And that made it easy for the pigs that owned the land it stood on to do whatever they wanted. They could hardly keep track of them all, so as far as they were concerned, the only thing the kids weren’t missing was a place to sleep and some food to eat, on occasion. They had nothing handed to them. Nothing at all._

_They were stronger than I was, too. Far stronger. How they found the joy to keep going every day with grins on their faces I couldn't tell you. I never had the time to figure it out myself._

_There…_

_There was this one kid. His name was Tubbo. I met him one day out by the grove. He was running around playing with bees and trying to find something shiny to bring back to show his friends, tell them he found it in the “magic forest”, or whatever they called it. But he ran into me instead. I thought he’d run off or ignore me or whatever, but he got all excited and approached me, asked if I wanted to come with him to th… to the orphanage. I didn’t really get to answer, he took my hand and practically dragged me there, but I followed him anyway._

_I hadn’t realized before then, because I’d never set foot in the place before, but they were all… they were all so young. Go figure, hey, a bunch of kids being_ young, _what a revelation. Even the older kids, tall and lanky and tired as they were, hadn’t made it past the part of their lives where they could be jaded and bitter. They were_ alive _, despite all odds. I guess that made them happy._

“Sounds familiar.” 

“Hah. If you say so.” 

_So I started visiting. Just every once in a while. When I was around. They loved to tell me how amazing they thought I was. They saw something I didn’t, clearly. Heard about all I’d done through the grapevine. Heard the owner of the land, Richard Weaver talk about me like I was a stain upon the earth, and anything that made him unhappy automatically made the children happy. That’s my guess anyway._

_Tubbo must have thought I was a superhero or something. I told him I wasn’t. That it wasn’t heroic of me to be robbing trains and stealing from rich men, but he wouldn’t hear it._

_Talking with them was the only reason I ever set foot on that land. It was an awful place. If they wanted clean floors to walk on, they’d have to clean it themselves, and good luck getting a bunch of kids to pick up a broom. They shouldn’t have had to. They didn’t get clean clothes or shoes, so every once in a while you’d catch a group of them dancing around in the rain just a step into the grove. They looked like they’d never seen water falling from the sky before._

_I tried teaching Tubbo how to steal. Nothing valuable, and not from people who needed what they had. Just bread and scraps of food. He was a natural. I wasn’t the best role model, I’ll admit, but I’d do it again. A thousand times, even. The kid was attached to me at the hip. He would have followed me anywhere, if he could. And I would have let him._

_I tried marching in there one day, and Gods, I felt ridiculous, and asked… asked if I could take them…_

_All of them._

“Jesus. All of them?” 

“Every last one.” 

_I wanted them out of there. I wanted them to be happy. I knew they could be, too. They’d just never gotten the chance._

_But old Weaver turned me away. Said there was no good care of kids in the hands of a… of a reckless vigilante like me. No care at all, for that matter._

_So I did the next best thing._

_I grew up in Weaver. There were a lot of things I knew that the locals didn’t. Like the fact that Richard fucking Weaver wasn’t half the man they thought he was. Like that if you took a left on main you’d get to the cantine twice as quick as if you didn’t - straight to the edge of town. And like the fact that just west of the cantine there was a mineshaft. A cave system just like this one._

_One night when no one was paying attention - because nobody ever did - I made sure Tubbo stayed awake, and that every single kid in the orphanage followed him out. I… I don’t know what I was thinking, now._

_There were twenty seven kids… twenty seven exactly._

_And they all followed Tubbo without fail. Because Tubbo followed me. And I led them to the mineshaft, because I was an idiot, and I thought I could just think it all through as it came. Because… Because I don’t know. I guess. I don’t know…_

_They were all so scared._

_Half of them didn’t like the dark. The other half was afraid of monsters and bats and the corpses of dead miners. There was nothing I could do to hide them from that._

_But when Tubbo told me to turn back. There’s something wrong. Something… something feels wrong. All I said was it’s ok. It’s going to be ok._

_And I kept… walking._

* * *

Sapnap clung to the worn rags of his sleeping back as though they were another person, radiating body heat that he could selfishly keep to himself. His hands shook with the weight of the temperature, dropping on him like the dead weight of his doubt and unease.

He wished Karl were with him. 

He reached out, bumping his fist with Ant’s clenched paw. He knew what he was thinking. That perhaps he’d made a mistake. Perhaps they all had. 

“You know how it’s not Bad’s fault,” he said quietly, hoping Ant would hear him from the log he was perched on, watching over the fire and waiting for something to happen. What, exactly, Sapnap wasn’t sure, and he wasn’t sure Ant knew either. 

“Of course it’s not,” said Ant, his ears twitching to the wind. 

“Then it’s not yours either.” 

Ant shivered away a chill, drawing his shawl closer to him and breathing hot into his shirt. 

“Bad doesn’t know what I said to him.” 

“Doesn’t matter, does it?” 

“Of course it matters.” 

Sapnap sighed. He wished he could ever find the right thing to say to him. He settled for “I don’t think it does.” 

Ant gazed at him from above, looking kind and soft and in pain. 

“I know you don’t.”

A long silence passed, where Ant allowed Sapnap to calm himself by running his hands across the paw pads on his palm and fingertips. The fire clicked and crackled in front of them, providing a modicum of warmth and hopeful anticipation. Sparks flew up into the sky now and again, mingling with the stars. Sapnap gazed up at them in comfort, reading them like a storybook for a moment of respite from the waves of thoughts unyielding in his head. 

He felt Ant’s claws appear, gently scratching at the inside of his hand and forearm. He breathed a sigh of tolerable amenity. This was fine. It was all fine. 

“Do you miss Velvet?” he asked, breaking the silence for memories of home. Ant laughed. 

“All the time.” He flipped Sapnap’s arm over to scratch softly at the other side. “I hope he’s not too worried.” 

“Me too.” 

Sapnap twiddled the fingers on his free hand, pulling them down one by one with his thumb to hear the satisfying _crack_. 

“I bet he misses you too, Sapnap,” said Ant. 

Sapnap wanted to curl up into himself - even better, to curl up against Karl, just to feel his presence in his arms again. He ached everywhere on his body he could have felt Karl’s skin, his hair, his lips, and tried very very hard not to cry. 

“Y-yeah. Velvet too.” 

“Hah. Yeah, Velvet too.” 

Sapnap’s eyes fell back down to the earth. His free hand fell into the cold dust and dug in until he could feel the remnants of water in the soil. 

“Ant?” 

“Yeah?” 

“How long until we have to go… g-go without him?” 

Sapnap could only see half of his face in the light of the fire. He looked pained. 

“We’re not going without him,” he said. Sapnap squeezed his paw, and Ant squeezed right back. 

“Ok.” 

* * *

The fire light did no justice to George’s expression. It was priceless, except that it tore Dream’s heart out when he finally looked up from the ground. He was sure he would have laughed, if he were anybody else. But George had lost the pattern in his breathing, and was pressing one thumb into his opposite palm like he was trying to feel his pulse through it, trying to find that it was still there. 

“Y-you… you didn’t…” he said. Dream wanted to reach out, put George’s face in his hands, let him find the words easier. “You didn’t.” 

“Not technically…” Dream said, feeling himself sink heavily onto the rock he was sitting on. _But I did_.

“Not _at all!_ ” George said. He stood up with force, enough to knock his bag over and send various random items tumbling out. The sound of glass bottles clinking on stone filled the cavern for a short moment. Dream was shocked nothing had broken. 

George’s hand flew up to his mouth, and he looked off into the empty darkness, eyes wide as all hell. He looked like he was going to be sick. 

“Oh Gods…” he said. “Oh my Gods.” 

“George-” 

“ _You! Why didn’t you-!_ ” 

“I didn’t need to.” 

“ _Of course you did!_ ” George started pacing. The sound of his footsteps was like a metronome. A broken and very out of tune metronome. Dream found it in his heart to be amused. “Gods, _Gods,_ Dream! All this time…” 

“George, listen. It really doesn’t make a difference.” 

“You’re mad. You're absolutely mental, and… and.” 

“And?” 

“And we have to get out of here.” 

George reached for the strap of his bag, curling his fingers around it like he was meant to choke it. 

“Now.”


	7. An Open Grave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dream and George make their way out of the caved-in earth, and the Hunters contemplate their home.

A new and tumultuous feeling of safety didn’t make the cave any less of a dingy mess of water and sand. But George wouldn’t dare think it was unwelcome, for fear that it would dissipate if he did. Once the bottom edges of his pants were soaked through with mud and extreme subjective dissonance, he stopped caring about softening his steps so that his heels didn’t pull more of it up and onto him. At first it had felt horrible. Now it felt as though his skin had absorbed it all, puddle by puddle, leaving the cling of fabric on his ankles sitting there like nothing. 

He missed the warm radiance of the fire they were leaving behind. Now, he glided over the dripping stone walls of the cave, feeling every bump and crevice tease his freezing skin. His fingertips were nothing but a blur of blue, shivering this way and that. His hands stung at the uncomfortable prospect of mild hypothermia. It was enough to keep him present. Somewhat aware. 

Two steps ahead of him was Dream, a miniature ton better than George at maneuvering the rocks and boulders and uneven ground that covered what used to be a guiding path. George wondered a few times if Dream had practice getting out of tight spaces, conveniently ignoring the fact that it was often he and the hunters that put him there. He scrambled around, hopping gaps and jumping up to reach over ledges, squeezing through tight spaces like he could simply rearrange his body to fit the cracks in the wall. 

On occasion he’d reach back, offering a hand that George was quick to swat away before he could get his balance. The cold wall was better company. 

He was unsure of how exactly Dream knew where to go. The sound of running water disappeared and reappeared at random, making George imagine the veins and streams and winding pathways that ran around them, painting a picture that led up slowly and painstakingly to the surface. Dream climbed up, so George followed him up. Dream turned left, so George followed him left. 

“We’re almost there,” said Dream. George wanted to smack him. However the hell he thought they were almost there, George wasn’t about to forgive Dream for the crime of being an insufferable ass. Murder, perhaps. Irritation, no. Absolutely not. Never. 

“Literally how do you know that.” 

“I just do.”

George actually did smack him then. He only reached about halfway up his arm, having missed a step and slipped just enough to save Dream from a proper punishment. 

“Ouch! Why?”

“You deserve it.” 

Dream smiled, prompting George to realize it was a sight he never got to see. He was… it was fine. Just fine. Just as fine as the realization that George in fact did _not_ want to see it again. And that he did _not_ have to force himself to look away and refuse Dream’s hand again. He didn’t need help, thank you very much. He could climb this bloody ledge by himself, thank you very much. And he could make his way out of this stupid cave by himself too.

“You’re so _mean_ to me,” said Dream, with a playful punch that made George lighten, just a touch. At least they weren’t dead, or dying. But then there was _that_ to consider. 

“You deserve that too,” said George, pulling himself over a boulder with a great deal of effort. The matchlight in his free hand was beginning to shrink, and he wished he’d had the foresight to bring a change of oil with him. 

“After pulling me halfway across the country and then some only to tell me after we almost die that you didn’t even do the thing we’re chasing you for, I think I deserve to say what I want.” 

“Hey now-”

“Shh!” said George, stilling. “Listen.” 

“Wha-” 

“Shush!! Jesus.” George reached up to put his hand over Dream’s mouth, revelling lightly in the silence that came after. Dream never did shut up, did he. How horribly endearing of him. 

George tilted his head this way and that, waiting for the sound that had alerted him. He allowed the match to go out, despite himself, waiting for every other sense in his possession to guide him. 

He heard the _drip, drop_ of the cavern beneath them, the cluster of pebbles making their way down, down, down to the ground from the ceiling, disturbed by the passage of water. The still churning of mineshaft air. Dream’s breathing, slow and steady, making its way around his hand without disturbance. A dull _whoosh_. 

_There._

“Do you hear that?” He removed his hand.

“What?”

“A draft. That’s our way out.” 

Dream listened. The sounds returned, rich and persistent, enhanced perhaps from the slow joy of understanding freedom was at arm’s length. George watched Dream realize that he was right - _of course he was_ \- a gradual bliss lacing through his body, sharpening his features and blooming on him like a flower. A relief that George was almost put off that he understood exactly. It made its way into him, too. Dream turned to him, sharing his smile and the desperate desire to run where the breeze drove him to, taking in oceans of the fresh air that would greet them. He almost forgot where he was. 

“Georgie, you’re a genius,” said Dream. He didn’t wait for a reply - one that probably would have been all too snarky and disinterested, had George had a single moment to grasp for coherency after the stutter in his chest - opting instead to run forth, bounding across rocky ground to reach up at the walls and low ceiling and tug at any stone that came loose in his grip. 

Though it still clawed at them as hard as it could manage, the darkness clinging to their wrists like shackles began melting away. As Dream yelped upon feeling the draft hit the back of his hand. As George reached up beside him, careful to avoid his touch but desperate to feel the give of a path to vast desert and Zephyr's gentle kisses falling open. As a cluster of rocks and pebbles and dust became heavy in their hands, and with a mutual glance, they stepped back and allowed the wall to fall away, revealing an open tunnel through which a gust of fresh wind tumbled into them.

Dream bolted first, as soon as the dust settled. He seemed to disregard the way he stepped over the rubble, or the way he jumped up with all the strength in his body just to reach the opening. He simply surged forward, searching for the light of the moon that would pour on his face when he finally got to breathe the air of the night again. 

George ran after him, letting his hands pull under Dream’s boots to lift him up enough that he could follow. The breath of relief they were craving was so, so close. It stung at George’s lungs recklessly, making him want to gasp and reach for it with his cold, freezing blue hands. He crawled through, tripping on this or that and ignoring the way a rock would snag his skin and scrape at his arms and legs every few moments. 

Before him, Dream stopped, faced once again with a wall. Not of rocks, but of dust. With a glance behind him to meet George’s eyes just once more, he began to claw at it, pulling with each scratch a mound of hydrated soil until it all came careening down on him. He backed up until he and George were pressed flush against each other, a familiar feeling that was rapidly overpowered by the pinpricks of blue light that stabbed through the sediment while Dream busily shook the dirt from his eyes. The glow illuminated his face, so that George was able to see beneath his scrambling hands just how the soil clung to his eyelashes and cheeks. 

The moment Dream could see his exit through the mess on his face, he broke from George to burst out of the like he’d been suffocating. Which, in a way, George supposed, they both were. And when he finally clutched freedom in his hand and raised it to the sky to swallow a world’s worth of relief from the air, clinging to the ground with his knees and just about as close as he could be to tumbling onto his back, he turned and reached out one last time, offering George his hand. 

_How can I say no to you_? 

With a pull, George was kneeling beside him, both groveling to Gaia for the way the fresh air made the dirt between their fingers feel like the finest silk, the way that in the light George could finally turn to Dream and see the way the lines traced down his cheeks through the dust that clung to him, and the smile that spread across his face. 

“Guess we’re free,” he said. 

“Guess so,” said George. 

The moon above watched the silence that passed between them for what felt like a single peaceful eternity. During all of it, in every possible way he could feel it, George allowed himself to bask in the reprieve of being able to breathe again. Proudly, he pressed his back flat to the earth and gripped the fabric on his chest. _I’m not drowning anymore_ , he thought, with a smile and a sigh that lifted years off of his life. _I’m not drowning._

The moment remained still until the air carried to his ears a distant shout. 

“ _George!_ ” Bad cried, far off in the distance, running towards him and the grave he’d just crawled from. Whatever spell had fallen on George briefly had broken, and the look in Dream’s eyes when he turned to him no longer held secrets worth more than twenty seven thousand crowns. He asked George for something with those eyes, and threw in with the question the understanding that it was an absurd thing to ask for. But as Bad and the hunters drew closer, he scrambled to his feet expecting perfectly to be able to at least get a good chase in. Perhaps he’d make a break for one of the horses, now that he was in the state to ride properly, George was sure he was thinking. 

Loaded and ready, George pulled his crossbow from out of its holster, aimed, and pulled the trigger smoothly. 

Dream’s expression changed from thrill to shock in truly record time as lead and tight-knit rope whirled around his legs with a tug at every swing, sending him flying forward and just barely stopping himself from eating dirt. 

The hunters looked on as they ran to them, processing every split second of this spectacle - of which there were only a few - and trying all in their own ways to decide who it was they should approach first. 

George managed to lock eyes with Sapnap through his labored breath. A wordless conversation occurred, the transliteration of which George could not be bothered to express in his mind as he watched Sapnap and Ant dash to tackle Dream to the ground before he freed his legs of the rope. The back of his head fell, colliding gently with the ground as the last of his energy and resolve to keep his eyes open fell from his weak grip and danced into the wind with a sigh. Bad knelt beside him and said something, probably frantic and distressed and perhaps even in tears while he did, but George didn’t see anything, couldn’t feel anything, hardly heard anything. The ringing in his ears would go away, he was sure. But while it remained, he let his labored breaths escape him one by one and counted the stars by memory. 

The dull sound of struggle dissipated as his consciousness slipped away, finally allowing his dreary body to seep into the earth - then into Bad’s arms - and rest. 

* * *

“I told you he could,” said Sapnap, with far too much confidence in his tone, as though he thought he could glide by the long, arduous hours of worry and fear that had gripped him like a fever before any of them had seen George’s face again. Ant gave him a playful smack on the arm, hoping this mood would persist before he had to face the uncomfortable truth that was tied to a tree behind them. 

“Yeah, and look at him,” said Ant, trying to force the relief he knew was there to show itself in Sapnap the way it was quite literally _pouring_ out of Bad. George lay beside all of them. Close to the campfire to return his skin to a reasonable shade of “alive.” His breathing was coming short, face and clothes coated in mud and hints of blood. Ant cursed the cave dust and reservoir water for trying to cement him underground forever, and the sharp rocks jabbing out at him every which way in the dark. He was suddenly glad he’d saved all of his bottles. “He’s no worse for wear, right?” 

“At least he’s alive,” said Bad, sitting dutifully by him, placing a delicate hand on his forehead every now and again. “I’m trusting you both not to assault him with questions when he wakes up.” He threw a pointed look at Sapnap, which Ant understood perfectly. 

“Anyway,” said Ant. “It’s over now, thanks to George. We’ve got him.” 

He couldn’t feel the pride he wanted to when he turned to look at Dream. Even with a rag around his mouth and ropes and hooks anchoring him upright to a tree. Ant refused himself the satisfaction and muddled words in his head. And meanwhile, Dream stared right back, eyes green as the grove grass he remembered. _No more_ , Ant thought, over the familiar noise of his runes tapping him politely in the head from across the reservoir basin. Even tucked deep and away in his saddle bag they insisted. _It’s over_ , he thought at them. _Enough of this._

Beside him, Sapnap seemed to realize that staring intensely at him would make George wake up faster, and retired his efforts in favor of sitting before the fire and warming his hands. Ant wondered if he couldn’t just stick his hands in and pull them out unscathed. 

“You know,” said Bad, “I think I’m going to take a good long break after this.” 

“Agreed,” said Sapnap, conceding a laugh. He pressed his warmed hands to his neck and sighed into the night air. “I’m going to sleep for _ever_.” 

“ _Hah!_ Gosh, that sounds nice,” said Ant. “I can’t wait to have Velvet’s buttermilk biscuits again.” 

Bad and Sapnap voiced their wordless love for buttermilk biscuits at the mere prospect.

“Dude, Wilbur’s beef stew?” said Sapnap, placing his head in his hands at the warm pool of fond memories they were creating. He blew a kiss into the fire sparks. “Nectar of the Gods.” 

Ant allowed himself to drift, to be in that place tasting _real_ food again, sitting surrounded by all the people he’d been missing. The smell of indescribable bliss floating from the kitchen every time the doors swung open, paired with the singing and laughter of gathered folks around the piano by the windows. His little cousins and their friends bursting in through the doors from the chill air into the warm and comfortable tavern light, performing cowboys and pillagers for the amused patrons, who all cheered them on playfully without fail. And the food. _Oh_ the food. The places it could bring people. To their bliss, to the heavens, to each other, together. 

Velvet’s call house and Wilbur’s tavern were practically one place. Though separated by the street between them, they were always joined by people. And a communal love for good food and drink. 

“Gosh I _miss_ the folks at Wilbur’s! Phil played the piano so darn good, remember?” 

The sound of lively music filled Ant’s ears. He sighed, tapping his paw on the log he was sitting on to the imaginary tune. 

Memories of home had arisen between them all before. A bittersweet taste of the things that they missed, things that they were no closer to having than when they left them. Sometimes it would lull them to sleep on deep cuts of longing and loneliness that stayed for days afterward. And sometimes in self preservation they would forget it all entirely, fighting hard for the day they would all get to see it all with their eyes, touch it with their hands again. 

Now they tossed them around freely, feeling a rising, simmering euphoria in the knowledge that they were finally within their reach. Ant would get to eat buttermilk biscuits again, dance with Velvet at Wilbur’s tavern again. Sapnap would get to hold Karl in his arms, sleep in a real bed. Bad would get to rest, hang up his hunting hat and take care of the town. Memories turned to hopes and anticipations that they would all get to experience soon. 

Now all that was left was for Ant to remember that the sentiment didn’t apply to _all_ of them.

With a forced, weighted breath, George startled awake, clutching his chest, heaving like he’d been suffocated. Bad pressed into his arms, asking “are you okay” a million different ways a million miles an hour, bringing George slowly and steadily into reality.

“You’re ok,” he said. “You’re safe.” 

Sapnap was the second to be there, forgetting that he had meant to pretend he cared much less than he did and throwing his arms around George’s neck. Ant was sure there were tears in his eyes, but he forewent the thought to have mercy on Sapnap when this saga was over. It was sweet even without the tears anyway. 

“Jesus, what is _wrong_ with you, idiot?” said Sapnap, absolutely _not_ choked up, pressing his face to the back of George’s neck. George touched a hand to the stones around the fire, sensation returning to him. “You could have died.” 

Through a long moment of hesitation and steadying of thoughts, George managed a weak smile, and a gentle hand to Sapnap’s arms, still wrapped tightly around him, as if he would dissolve when he let go. 

“Heh, sorry.”

“You better not do that again.” 

“Wasn’t planning on it,” George huffed. “Trust me.” 

Satisfied, for the moment, Sapnap released George from his grasp, allowing Ant to finally approach him. 

There were so many things he could have - _should_ have said. “I’m sorry” didn’t sound quite right. “Are you ok?” was asking too little. 

He sat in front of George, taking every possible second to think of what was going to come out of his mouth, ears pressed flat to his head in thought and the worry that perhaps he shouldn’t say anything at all. Thinking maybe he shouldn’t have asked that damn question in the first place. Wondering if it had been better not to give them both something to worry about atop everything else. Wishing that he hadn’t thought that he could make everything better by just _asking_. If George had just taken his own damn time. 

And then George gave him a look that said a lot of things. “I forgive you” wasn’t quite right. “I’m alright,” was saying far too little. And somehow also far too much. He lowered his head, exhausted, far over trying to communicate something that wasn’t ready to be said, and put his hand out for Ant to take. 

So Ant took it. And for a comfortably long time, the four of them sat there, in the dirt beside the dancing fire, underneath the multitude of stars and cliff sides and swimming in a calm sea of everything looking up for just about the first time in many months. 

“Alright, Sapnap, get off me,” said George, without an ounce of malice. “Your breath stinks.” 

“Hey man. Fuck you. You almost died,” said Sapnap, reluctantly releasing George for the second time in as many minutes. 

“And your hugs might kill me still.” 

Bad and Ant managed to back off before George’s expression changed from one of comfort to one entirely unreadable. For the first time since he’d met him, Ant wasn’t entirely sure what George was thinking. But he was looking directly at Dream. And Dream was looking right back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh it's been a while I'm so sorry. Next chapter will be up much sooner, I just needed to GET THIS ONE DONE thank you for being patient. Shoutouts to Angel and Bitter, again, always. Simply for existing.


	8. Truth From Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> George lets the hunters know something important.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi hello. I told you the next chapter would be quick. Enjoy!

_What am I supposed to do now?_

It was hard to breathe through the gag. It was hard to breathe at all, what with the smoke of the fire occasionally blowing in his face, and the eyes George was giving him. Eyes like a film reel rewinding, picture after picture. 

The last fifteen or so hours were catching up to them both. Finally. 

After a long time of hearing stories that weren’t his, though Gods he wished they were, and paying close attention to George’s chest to make sure it rose and fell as steadily as the last time he checked - growing more anxious every minute that he wouldn’t wake up at all - Dream had forgotten that somehow, he’d let himself become _tied to a tree_ , captured, immobilized, detained, and not once allowed himself the time to ponder _why_. 

George stood, swaying on his feet for a few tense moments, and approached Dream without an ounce of hesitation - his only hindrance his inability to move quickly while his iron caught up to him. 

“George, back up!” said Bad, too perplexed to reach out and stop George himself. “Stay away from him.” 

“No,” said George. The simplicity of the phrase caught all three of the hunters completely unawares quite hilariously. Had Dream the room to laugh, he would have, but George was stubborn in approaching him, stepping up so close that if Dream’s arms were free, he would have involuntarily reached up and rested them on his shoulders. Only the tug of the restraints reminded him that he couldn’t. More importantly that he shouldn’t. 

The fire behind George cloaked him, drenching him in a gilded halo and a wealth of darkness that fell over his eyes as he pressed up close, determined to keep piercing through Dream’s carefully constructed shield of silence and disregard. He wasn’t sure why he thought he could escape it when the walls of the cave fell away around him, but he knew that with that look, he’d answer anything George asked him honestly, and he probably wouldn’t even notice doing it. 

And George knew it too. 

“You wanted to get away again, didn’t you?” said George, so close and so quiet that the hunters couldn’t possibly have heard. It was a rhetorical question, just for Dream to sit tied up and ponder on his own. 

_Not on my own,_ Dream thought. _With him._

Dream nodded.

George’s gaze bounced between his eyes, searching diligently. He reached up and pulled the gag down, his touch gentler than Dream could have ever possibly imagined. He’d give him all the answers if only he knew what they were. 

“You can tell your friends I won’t anymore,” he said, as a first attempt. “You got me fair and square. You can take me back to Weaver.” 

George wrapped his hands around the loose end of a rope and _pulled_ , until Dream felt the pythonic squeeze of his restraints around his chest. The equivalent of George having pulled him closer, until he was speaking into his ear from beside him - no doubt what he would have done had Dream been free.

“George!” called Antfrost from behind him, watching the scene play like a film with a twist ending. The _“what are you doing?”_ was implied. 

“You’re not going back to Weaver, idiot,” said George, ignoring Ant completely, until he turned and released Dream from the grip of the ropes - which felt more like loose threads now, if Dream didn’t pull or push away from them. And he didn’t. He wouldn’t, at least until George had said his piece.

The hunters gazed at them both, cautiously baffled at behavior that they’d apparently never seen from George. 

_Funny,_ thought Dream, despite himself. _That was such a George thing to do_ . To demand honesty from him just by the faith in his character and a _very_ close proximity. 

“We’re not arresting him,” said George, simply. 

_What?_

“The hell we’re not!” said Sapnap, apparently finished with the engaging in the rather amusing play. The characteristic flame was back in his eyes - completely over the relief he had that George was alive and sparking to the new memories of their very frequent arguments. At least Dream had to assume they were frequent. He’d never once seen them in agreement. 

“George, what are you talking about?” said Bad, ever the voice of reason. Like Sapnap’s passivity translator. “What do you mean we’re not arresting him?”

“Exactly what I said.”

“You can’t be serious!” said Sapnap. 

“Completely.” 

“Oh, _completely_ ! That’s _fine_ , George! Care to share _why_ with the rest of the class?” 

“Maybe when you lose your attitude and put the sword away!” said George. 

Sapnap hesitated. “What are you, my mother?” 

“Sapnap!” said Ant, probably the only person besides Bad who could truly get Sapnap to do anything. With a very dissatisfied huff, Sapnap retracted the shortsword he’d brandished the moment George pulled on the rope back into its sheath on his back. His face was turning a truly priceless shade of red. 

“What’s all this about?” said Bad. He was caught between standing up and holding George until he was calm and rational, and staying put to give him space. 

“Bad, you’re all about fairness, right?”

“I- yes…” 

“So you wouldn’t put an innocent man into custody, would you?” 

“I… Innocent?” 

_No, guilty. Guilty. Tell them I’m guilty_. 

“Innocent.” 

“How do you know?” said Ant. 

George turned to Dream, those inescapable demands in his eyes again. _The truth,_ he wanted. He wished those eyes weren’t such a sticky sweet trap. He wished he weren’t a slave to them. And he didn’t really wish that at all, did he?

“Go on,” said George. “Tell them.” 

“I… There’s nothing to tell.” 

“ _Dream-_ ” 

“Hang on,” said Ant, taking to his feet before Bad, and drifting cautiously over to Sapnap to keep him steady. “George, what did he say to you?” 

_What did I make you believe_?

“And how do you know he’s not lying?” said Sapnap, without waiting for George to open his mouth and say something that would piss him off more. They all stilled. 

“I just do.” 

George stood completely unmovable, like a pillar - one of the legs of a pantheon. Dream wanted to catch himself between feeling like a deceptive fool and a defenseless one before he could convince himself that either one was true. 

“ _What the hell is that?!_ ” 

“Sapnap just… hush for a minute,” said Bad. “George, what did he say?”

_Don’t tell them._

“The death of the Weaver kids,” said George. 

_Don’t lie._

“It’s not his fault.”

“That’s not true, George,” said Dream, against himself. It wasn’t a conversation that had a place for him. He was supposed to be gagged, even. But his urge to say just about _anything_ grew more immense every word George said. 

“It’s the truest thing I’ve heard this entire manhunt,” said George, so sure of himself that Dream almost believed him. 

“You can’t be serious,” said Ant, more quizzical than accusatory. It wasn’t in his nature to place blame. Dream just wished he could say it. 

“You’re honestly telling me that during the entire three, four months that we’ve been hunting him, nothing has seemed odd or suspicious to you? Nothing whatsoever?” said George

“Just because he saved my life _once_ , does not make him innocent!” said Sanpap, lunging to reach over Ant to step up to George before Ant used all of his body weight to restrain him. 

“ _Yes it doe-_ wait he saved your life?” 

“Y… uh. Yes? At the. The Hutchinson. When the mansion collapsed.” 

“ _And you didn’t think to tell anyone that?!_ ” said George. He and Sapnap were very near throwing themselves at each other. 

“Alright, let’s calm down a minute,” said Bad, stepping between the preemptively. “George, go on.” 

“George, _don’t_ ,” said Dream. Leaning the bare centimeter forward that the ropes allowed him to to be as close to George as possible. “Look, I’m guilty. That’s all. Take me to Weaver.” 

“There! He is _literally_ confessing!” said Sapnap. 

Dream’s mind clouded. He wouldn’t say another word. He stared at the ground adamantly, refusing to look into George’s eyes as they stabbed through him, knowing that if he did he’d have to face a reality he wasn’t ready to. This was a trial, George the judge, the hunters the jury. And Dream was withholding information. No matter how irrelevant, George would force him to give it eventually. 

“He’s an idiot,” said George, turning back to the hunters. “An innocent one.” 

“That’s not what _he’s_ saying,” admitted Ant. 

“Because he thinks he deserves to be sold out for twenty seven thousand crowns and he _doesn’t_.” 

Dream stilled against the ropes. George turned to him one last time, taking the rope in his hand once again and dragging his dagger from its sheath and pressing it to Dream’s stomach, never once taking his eyes from him. Dream’s breath shallowed. If George wasn’t so readable, Dream might have said he looked angry. But he was, and he didn’t. 

“You’re not going to Weaver,” he said, and cut. 

The hunters scrambled for their weapons and ropes as with one give of tension, Dream finally fell to the ground. His head told him he should run, but his head also said a lot of things all the time, so he ignored it. George’s eyes wouldn’t let him leave anyway. 

“You’re not going anywhere. Right?” 

“… No.” 

“Good.” 

Dream tried sifting through his thoughts, finding it was like trying to push water out of the way of more water. He thought through every slope of George’s face. Every line in his irises. _You are innocent._

“Why are you so adamant about this?” he asked, in that quiet, close way that George spoke to him in, expecting nothing. He was so close.

“Because it’s true.”

* * *

A window had been opened. Bad watched it happen. 

He watched as George exchanged more with Dream without once saying a single word than he had been able to - or Antfrost or Sapnap had been able to - in months. 

It didn’t take long for the envy to dissipate as quickly as it had arisen. There were ways of saying things without saying them that Bad didn’t understand. He’d learned to concede that there were some things that he and George couldn’t talk about a long time ago. 

But this. This was curious. 

He glanced at Ant, who was exchanging looks with Sapnap, then back at George and Dream. 

Though a hesitance was still clinging to his bones - cultivated over months of knowing what the truth was and over a meager two days of having that same truth erased and blown into the wind - he waited, with his hand loosely on the trigger of his crossbow, and watched while his conscience fought with itself. 

“He’s not running,” Ant muttered to himself. As slow as physically possible, he placed the rope down where he could easily reach for it again. 

“George,” said Bad, regretting mildly the way he’d clearly interrupted something. “Come here.” 

And in the second most shocking thing that George had done in the same amount of minutes, he listened. There he stood, patiently next to Bad, keeping a second pair of eyes on a wildly volatile Sapnap, waiting for the hunters to catch up to him. Did Bad think that at some point during this assignment he would stop chasing the criminal and start chasing after the thoughts of his own teammates? No. Was he doing it anyway? Perhaps. He was unsure of exactly what he was chasing, feeling a little bit slow. A little bit absent from something. 

“I still don’t know about this,” he said. 

“He could have killed me and he didn’t,” said George. 

“Yeah, well you could have killed me too,” said Dream, realizing immediately afterwards that Bad wanted nothing less than to hear his voice. _You hush,_ he thought, not finding the patience to say it. 

“Tell me what he told you.” 

George made that searing eye contact with Dream again. The one that Bad couldn’t comprehend. An unbelievably complex private conversation that he only marginally wished he could have. Discerning something that no one but he recognized, George stood up straight and gazed at Dream

“Richard Weaver is responsible for the death of the twenty seven orphans in the town of Weaver.” 

The hunters all stopped. Stopped everything. Moving, thinking. Bad was sure Sapnap stopped breathing. 

“ _That is not what I told you_ ,” said Dream, apparently just as shocked. 

“Isn’t it?” said George. 

Dream’s back fell against the tree, this time of his own volition, which only worked to confuse Bad further. A familiar look was starting to dress him, the only real look he’d ever seen Dream wear. One of the deepest fathomable regret. Without waiting for a response - from _anyone_ \- George continued. 

“For one thing, the charge for murder is false. Dream didn’t _kill_ anyone,” he said, never looking away from Dream’s eyes, as though uninterested in convincing anyone but him, in a _“let me finish”_ sort of way. “He wanted to adopt them, actually.” 

This, apparently, Dream could not dispute. With difficulty, he tore his gaze from George and plastered it to the ground, his jaw set in steel, determined not to let his mouth open once. 

“What?” said Sapnap. “All of them?”

“All of them,” said George and Dream. Together. Frankly alarming. 

“Dick wouldn’t let him. Gave some bullshit excuse for it,” George continued. 

“Which might have been true,” Dream interjected. 

“No better than a sleazy liar, maybe. And they ended up with you one way or another.” 

“It was a _mistake_.” 

“You _stole_ them!?” said Bad, addressing Dream for the first time. Dream replied with a look so forlorn that Bad had no further questions to ask. 

“I led them into a death trap,” said Dream. Bad noticed the way his nails were digging into the skin of his arms through the fabric of his sleeves, though he’d tried crossing them to hide it, and the way the bags under his eyes were pulling deeper by the second. “Maybe I didn’t kill them, but the fault was still mine.” 

“Dream, please,” said George. Bad had never heard him plead with anyone. _What on earth happened in that cave?_ “Do you really think that collapse was an accident?” 

Bad was almost getting sick of all the times everyone other than George became silent as death, hanging on a heavy implication that nobody but George had considered. Then again, he’d known from the beginning, even half a year ago, that George’s mind was no small miracle. Now if only he could get George to see it. 

“What?” said Dream, slowly, carefully, weary of any other horrifying revelation George might suddenly decide to write out for him. 

“You said that Weaver profited off of keeping the orphanage full.” 

“I… did.” 

“You said that the townspeople never knew Weaver for who he really was.” 

“I did.” 

“Weaver was the one who issued your bounty, wasn’t he? Not the town. But the town is the one paying us. The bounty is _town_ money.”

“Oh my _Gods_ , George can you literally just say the thing you’re thinking? My head is going to explode,” said Sapnap, unknowingly breaking a very strange atmosphere. “ _Such a know it all_.”

“I’m _getting_ there, prick,” said George. 

“Language,” said Bad, glad to at least be saying something. 

George readjusted himself from childishly mocking Sapnap and started again.

“I don’t think he killed the kids on purpose. Unless he really is that awful,” he said, slowly and deliberately so as not to lose anybody. “He intended the cave-in for _you_.” 

“Oh my Gods,” breathed Antfost. That was two people caught up. 

“When the wrong people died and you got away, he had to cover his tracks somehow.” 

“Oh. My Gods,” said Bad. His hand drifted over his mouth. That was three. And with Sapnap’s wordless gaze into nothing, that was all four. 

“You didn’t kill anyone, Dream. By accident _or_ on purpose,” said George with finality. “Weaver did.”

* * *

The air was extremely still, and yet the turmoil in every hunter’s head was loud enough to overpower the cracks and spits of the fire. Distantly - _very_ distantly - George could make out the warm blue of the sky before the sunrise began just on the horizon, the stars disappearing in its wake. 

_Have I convinced you yet?_ he wondered. _That you are innocent?_

Unnoticed by a broiling sea of confusion that surrounded him, Dream sank to the ground, the bark of the tree on his back carving up his skin and inhibitions. George waded through the ankle-high water towards him, while Sapnap had a conniption and Bad had an intense moral crisis and Ant… well, George wasn’t exactly sure what Ant was thinking. But it was probably something similar. 

“Dream,” he muttered, needing nothing else to catch his attention. Dream dropped all his thoughts to look back at him. “Maybe they don’t believe you. Maybe the townspeople don’t believe you. Or the bounty holders or even you. But I do.” 

And in that moment Dream’s golden honey colored eyes were illuminated by the first rays of morning and George knew he was right. He looked away before the familiar falling sensation overtook him, but he was right. Of course he was. He was always right. Now if only he could get Dream to understand it. 

The hunters were scattered around the campfire like marbles, rolling around in circles inhibited by dirt and pebbles. The frigid winds of the night were starting to dissipate, leaving only an arid morning chill. Despite it all, George took a moment - all too short - to steep in it, taking one deep breath of perfectly tempered air after another. 

“So… What now?” said Ant, recovering from several rocky moments of hard thought. 

“Uh. Ask the runes?” said Bad, in his stupor, probably not registering a single word.

A brief silence fell, in which despite all odds, Dream’s expression changed to a lighter one as he processed. 

“You still use _runes_ , Frosty?” he said. 

_You’re joking_. 

Antfrost froze like he’d been put under a spotlight, piecing together a picture that no one could see, the way he nearly always did. His claws appeared and retracted and appeared again, before he finally caved, apparently sick of being pensive. 

“What, like I’d use cards instead?” 

Sapnap - who was presumably going to place it gently back onto his belt - waved his crossbow wildly around with his arms as he stomped on the dry ground precisely once before firing off into the empty desert. 

“Oh _come on!_ ” he said. Despite himself, George had to stifle a laugh. “Does anybody _else_ have any _mission-changing information to share?!_ ” He reached back to load another arrow into the crossbow and fired that one up into the desert air, where it would no doubt come down a minute later and kill some poor lizard or snake. “I’m _all ears!_ ” 

“Sapnap! Stop wasting arrows!” said Bad, reaching up to pin Sapnap’s arms to his sides so he could breathe properly. 

“Why?!” raved Sapnap. “It’s not like we’ll _need_ them, right?! It’s not like we’re going to _arrest_ the _innocent fucking_ **_rat_ ** _right there,_ are we?!” 

“You can still shoot me if you want, Sapnap,” said Dream, holding back laughter with very much effort. 

“Gods, you’re still such a _nightmare_ ,” said Ant. Ignoring the tantrum that continued on Sapnap’s side of the fire, he procured a box from the bag at his hip and handed it to him. 

As much as George wanted to stand idle and watch, curiosity pushed him to ask, “what’s that?”

“It’s your friend’s shitty divination methods.” 

“Excuse you. Cards are classic.”

“Cards are vague as hell.” 

“And runes are always wrong.” 

“I’m sorry,” said George, finding absolutely nothing about the conversation - if he ventured so far as to call it - remotely familiar. “Frosty?” 

Sapnap and Bad had to pause - though vividly engaged in wrestling a loaded crossbow between each other, Bad persistently reaching for the safety switch and Sapnap persistently determined to fire the crossbow before he got the chance - just to stare. 

“Uh,” said Sapnap, pretending to ignore his tone two seconds ago. “ _Frosty_?”

“No,” said Ant, deadpan and resolute. 

“Yes,” said Sapnap. “Absolutely one hundred percent.” 

“ _Noooo_ ,” said Ant, very near throwing the card box at Dream’s face. 

“I think yes,” said George, taking the box from him before he was able to. Dream reached up to take them, but George became intrigued by the symbols that covered it, faded etchings of geometric animals or numerals on the taught leather of the box. He opened it as he passed it into Dream’s hands. 

“I agree,” said Dream, gracing the cards lovingly with his hands, in an “ _I missed you”_ sort of way. “Unless you prefer _meow meow boy_ , kitty.” 

“You are the worst. You are still the worst,” said Antfrost. _Frosty_. 

George watched as Dream shuffled through the cards seamlessly, not remotely understanding how they seemed to glide through his hands like they were levitating, with so much air in between them and Dream’s nimble fingers. Maybe it was that grove magic he was talking about. 

“Wait,” he said, suddenly remembering something important. “Ant, how the hell do you know each other?” 

“Oh,” said Ant, considering his response carefully. “Dream and I trained together for a time. I guess you could say we were friends.” 

“I sure _hope_ so,” laughed Dream, throwing the entire deck from one hand to another. George watched it separate and come back together, like the air carried them not by any natural force of gravity. “Probably not anymore though.” 

Ant pondered this for a very long moment. Just as Dream was busy spreading the cards out like a fan and hovering his hand over to pick one, he said, “why not?” 

George reached into his memory, though it made him sick and mildly lightheaded to be anywhere near the cave in his mind again. “The grove. In Weaver. Is that where you studied?” 

“The very same,” said Ant. “Bet he didn’t tell you he was a witch, did he?” 

“Oh come on. I am _not_ a witch.” 

“Sure you are…” Ant shook with the effort of not laughing out loud. “Pissbaby.” 

“ **_What_ ** **?** ” said Dream, having heard perfectly.

“What?” echoed George. “Why ‘pissbaby’?” 

Ant grinned at Dream smugly, having no intention of negotiating. It was a fitting look for a cat, George thought. 

“Well see this one time,” he began, before Dream tried talking over him with a chorus of “ _no no no no shut up shut up no_.”

“ _This one time_ ,” he said, louder over Dream’s protests. Dream’s head falls into his hands. “We were walking out of the grove after a lesson with the headmaster, and this girl he liked was out there waiting for him.” 

“Ant, please,” said Dream. “I’m begging you.” 

“And he always made fun of me for not wanting to talk to _my_ crush -” 

“ _And I always will_.” 

“- so I dared him to go talk to her.” 

George’s hand flew to his mouth. “No way.” 

“Yes. Yes way.” 

“ _Shut uuuuuuuup!_ ” 

From the short distance away, over a quickly dying fire, Sapnap was doubled over, nearly kissing the ground with how hard he was laughing. Dream was turning a hilarious shade of red about it. And Bad, ever respectful, was stifling his giggles by turning away and staring at the ground by his feet, which for the moment was going poorly.

The thought of a younger Dream had never sunk into George’s mind before, but thinking about it, a sort of longing came to him, like he’d missed something important that he couldn’t replicate. He laughed - because it was laughable - but somewhere in his thoughts he longed for more stories like it. _A young Dream_ , he thought, fondly. _Just a little one._

“Alright, alright,” said Ant, returning to the present while Dream continued to shuffle his cards. George noticed they were messily gilded on the sides, making no effort to shy away from his affinity for shiny things. “That was a bit low, I’ll admit.”

He reached out to offer Dream a hand to stand with, and then George realized all five of them were on their feet. There came a tense silence, where humor began to give way to reality again. _Five_ , thought George. _Not four anymore_. 

“So what’s the plan?” said George, separating himself from Dream for the first time in a very difficult twenty four hours to walk to where the horses were bridled. 

Dream looked off into the horizon, face serious and pensive in a way that didn’t suit him. 

Ant sighed and turned to the hunters. He put out his paw and waited until every rune in his set flew from his saddle bag and back into his palm neatly - something George had never seen but Gods was it cool. He pulled one rune, then another, and thought for a moment. 

“I guess we’re going to Weaver.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You made it yay! 
> 
> Yo if you haven't been reading the comments, our resident Bitter Cat has been leaving some spec-fucking-tacular analysis of each chapter, so if you're curious about the divination readings, some cool thoughts about the imagery, etc. go read those! They're pretty fuckin pog! 
> 
> Anyway thanks to Angel for proofing and Bitter for existing, and hope you enjoyed this doozy of a chapter! We're almost there folks!


End file.
